Zodiac
by inkbender
Summary: If the RWBY characters were all faunus... AU in which a certain Jaune Arc fakes his transcript to gain admission into an all-faunus battle school - except he's the only human being in all of Menagerie. With his luck, it doesn't take long before he's embroiled within all their petty school politics. Which may or may not be related to all those unplanned panty shots.
1. Only Human

_Author's Note: the thirteen characters who appear in this first chapter (some named, others just seen) are all members of the zodiac (plus one). See if you can guess who is which animal!_

**_Chinese Zodiac_**_  
Mouse  
Ox  
Tiger  
Rabbit  
Dragon  
Snake  
Horse  
Sheep  
Monkey  
Rooster  
Dog  
Boar  
Note: the Cat is not part of the Chinese zodiac._

* * *

**Chapter One - Only Human**

* * *

He's totally pulling the weak and defenseless gimmick here. If anybody does manage to wander their way into this particular hallway of the airship, at least they won't ever suspect him of being an undercover agent when they see him regurgitating his lunch into a garbage unit, right?

Jaune's fingers unconsciously curl tighter around the lip of the disposal container as he scowls at himself. He's got to stop putting himself down. He can do this. His motion-sick stomach just has to get its act together before they land in ten minutes; then he can confidently enter the grounds of Zodiac Academy and establish himself as a competent student.

As a single human being in a battle school attended entirely by faunus.

Sneaking in can't be that hard, right? Though most faunus have physical characteristics that obviously distinguish them as half-monster (like the untalkative bunny-eared girl who'd sat next to him earlier), not all have additional animal appendages. Some of them look just as human as the purebloods; generally, the true differences between human and faunus lie in the way their minds work.

According to his research (i.e. Faunuspedia), faunus establish dominance in the same way that, well, animals do: physical strength. So really, all Jaune has to do is stride into the Menagerie with the warrior's confidence of his father, and of his grandfather, and of his great grandfather, and maybe even the half-animals won't catch onto his humanity until he's left.

At least, that's the best case scenario, where nobody would ever suspect him of not being part-monster. Though the war was relatively peacefully brought to an end last year, relations between humans and faunus are still pretty rocky. At least "hate your guts" is better than "kill on sight," right? Still, Jaune's pretty sure he'd have to hightail it back home if anybody ever caught onto him.

Sneaking and living within this dog-eat-dog world is risky, but Jaune's determined to train himself alongside the descendants of monsters. With this unique approach to training, nobody can doubt him as the next heir of the Arc family legacy, right? Yeah, protecting humankind from the creatures of Grimm and all that stuff… but the _fame. _People looking up to him in adoration instead of facepalming. Love, respect, and _ladies_.

_{All you have to do is show no fear_,_}_ he reminds himself as he pushes himself away from the garbage can. _{Just imagine you're reporting to dad. Don't pee your pants. Hands by your sides. Stand tall and proud. Like a tiger. Majestic and powerful. Rowr. Chest out, chin up, and_—_}_

The floor shudders unsteadily as the airship hits another pocket of air on its descent towards solid earth. Jaune is gracelessly knocked off his stance and, of course, finds himself falling towards the garbage can that's attached to the wall. Which is just fine, by the way, because the rest of his stomach contents have abruptly decided to revisit the back of his throat and he's not sure he can deny them their dramatic exit.

The vomiting is expedited by a solid clap on his back from an unfriendly stranger. As Jaune noisily upchucks the remaining globs of his last meal into the disposal unit, an unfamiliar voice exclaims, "Whoa! You okay there, buddy?"

Jaune knows just by his tone that this guy is _not_ going to be his buddy, but he can't keep the sheepish grin off his face as he turns around. "I-I-I get airsick easily," he gasps, using the back of his hand to wipe vestigial trails of slimy throw-up off his lips… and freezes.

Oh man. This guy is built like a tank, with a thin shirt and plated armor covering the hard muscle that fills out his arms, shoulders, and chest. In a world where might is power, this man is probably somebody who holds a high position in the social spectrum. Worse is the smirk on the guy's face and the gleam in his indigo eyes: he's not just a man of power, but also a predator… and he's about to pounce upon his next meal. Screw keeping his humanity a secret; right now, Jaune's more concerned about keeping his body intact.

He wouldn'tdoubt it if his brother Roman marked his gravestone with "_Here lies Jaune Arc: human n00b who pissed off the enemy before he even set foot into their land."_

"Y-your chest plate," deflects Jaune desperately. _{Remember, no fear. Stand straight, chest out, chin up, look him in the eye…_ _Be the warrior that Dad's always expected you to be_._}_

The predator pauses. "What about it?"

The metallic-grey chest plate sports an emblem of the same color as the guy's hair: a burnt orange that resembles the warmth of the earth, or the dust of the ground, or the rust of ancient metal. The motif itself is of a boar's head with large tusks that jut out from either side of its jaw and curl to up and to the sides. (They're like the tusks of a big wooly mammoth, except on a huge pig face.)

"You're from the Clan of the Pig!" Jaune exclaims, finally connecting the insignia to his knowledge of the twelve ruling faunus clans. See, he did his research before taking on this mission. Y'know, about the important things, like the names of all twelve clans and other… important… things… that he can't actually recall right now, because the Pig Clan guy is looking at him with pure murderous rage in his eyes.

Um. Maybe he should have said _Clan of the Boar_ instead?

Aw man. He is so dead. Jaune's semi-confident stance crumples instantly as the Boar advances on him, brutish face twisted into an ugly scowl, fists clenched and ready to pound him into ground pork.

_{Here lies Jaune Arc, human n00b who failed his mission before he even started—}_

"Uh, like, Cardin?"

Jaune opens one of the eyes he'd unknowingly clenched shut. The first thing he notes about his savior (appropriately dressed in all white from her dress to her… bladed?... thigh-high boots) is her startling green eyes, heavily accented by thick cyan makeup. The physical observations stop there though, because her posture and expression convey absolutely no mercy. This girl is just as much of a predator as the Boar is… and look here, it's a wimpy blonde showing off to everybody that he is prey for the pickings.

He clumsily forces himself into a sort-of respectable standing position, but the girl isn't even paying attention to him. Tossing her straight black hair over one shoulder, she demands, "Cardin, you're, like, supposed to be stalking my sister."

It's only then that Jaune notices the almost-identical girl standing behind his savior. Though her crimson outfit pops more than that her twin, the girl dressed in red appears much more timid, with her head slightly lowered and her emerald eyes cast upon the ground.

"Guarding," Cardin growls. "Your brother's paying me to be her bodyguard."

"You're being, like, _paid_ to pay attention to Miltia," the girl in white corrects. "Y'know, since you seem to be havin' tons of trouble focusing on her, I might just have to, uh, confiscate your little boytoy."

_{Boy-**what**?}_

The girl in red lifts her head then, her eyes resting on Jaune. Shyly, she lifts a gloved hand and wiggles her fingers in a wave.

Her white-clothed twin reacts before Jaune can, her eyes quickly darting between her quiet sister and the terrified blonde. Without warning, she skates forward—her boots literally glide across the ground like they're sliding on ice—until she's right up in Jaune's personal space, whereupon she shifts her weight—

Jaune blinks. Vibrations from the floor reverberate up through his cheek. His head and hip hurt something fierce. Oh yeah, she kicked him in the head. He rebounded off the garbage can before collapsing in a boneless heap on the floor. His aura protected him from shredded skin and broken bones (yeah, those thigh-high boots really _did_ have sharp-edged swords attached to the heels), but the impact sites still ache nonetheless.

_{Welcome to the Menagerie_,_}_ Jaune sighs miserably as he watches his "welcoming party" walk down the hallway and turn a corner.

He should probably pick himself up now, but the floor currently feels a really cool place to hang out. He's just spending a little time to collect himself before he gets back to being a cool and confident warrior. Yeah.

Seems like he can't catch a break, though, because barely a second has passed before a shadow falls over him. "Uh… are you okay?"

He rolls over and unexpectedly comes within two inches of a pair of large gray eyes. "Um. Hi?"

The girl squatting next to him hops backwards twice before bouncing to her feet. A pair of small mouse ears rests on top of dark hair that has just a tinge of red to it, but what really catches Jaune's attention is the genuine smile on her face as she offers him a hand. "Hi! I'm Ruby," she chirrups.

Jaune hesitantly takes her hand and mentally breathes a sigh of relief when she starts to pull him to his feet instead of, well, kicking him in the head or something. "Jaune."

Wait, should he really be giving out his real name? What's the point of being an undercover agent if he goes around telling everybody his true identity? Ugh. Worst spy ever… But the redhead doesn't seem so intimidating. She's actually so small that she has to grab his hand with both of hers and throw her entire body weight into the effort of hauling him to his feet, but she does so with gusto. After his encounter with the angry Boar guy, it's nice to meet a nice faunus for a change.

"So what are you, Jaune?"

"W-w-what?" Or not. She can't be onto him already, can she?

"No wait, let me guess," she says, walking down the hallway without checking back on him. He follows her as she grabs her elbow with one hand and cups her chin thoughtfully with the other. Interestingly, the little grey ears atop her head twitch as she thinks. "I thought maybe Rabbit at first, especially since you seemed to never stop puking…"

"Hey! …You've been watching me?"

"Nah. You made a pretty big scene earlier, leaving the lobby while looking for a garbage can."

"Oh."

"Miltia Malachite seemed to be okay with you though, and then there was her bodyguard… so then, are you a Sheep?" She turns back to look at him for confirmation and notices the look on his face. "Oh. Or are you not even one of the Twelve in the first place?"

He'll take that excuse and settles for just nodding.

"Eek, I'm sorry! I just didn't think you'd initiate with the Boar if you didn't the power to back it up," she grins ruefully as she steps through the end of the hallway and into the spacious main lobby of the airship. The majority of the ship's passengers are here—beings who, save for a scattering of additional body parts, appear mostly human.

Before he can ask, Ruby interjects, "You _do _have a secret up your sleeve, right?"

"Uh…"

The redhead wrinkles her nose. "You've got some secret, I can tell. For one, you don't smell."

"I-I… I don't what?"

"I didn't notice it until now, but now that I have other people to compare it to… you don't smell. At all."

Jaune is spared from having to awkwardly answer Ruby's weird comment when the entire airship shudders once more—but this time, the sensation is stabilizing, backed by the solidity of the earth. Simultaneously, the public speakers crackle to life, announcing, "We have now landed within the Menagerie. Feel free to explore the city, but you must return to school grounds by 5:30."

The rest of the speaker's announcement is drowned out by the deafening roar of a hundred excited conversations starting up all at once. In no time, Jaune and Ruby are swamped by crowds of people, all sweeping them towards the exit.

"Ruby!" Jaune calls as the tiny brunette disappears amongst the faunus. Though he's only been talking to her for two minutes, she is pretty much the closest thing he has to a friend right now. He'd especially appreciate having a guide to this unfamiliar city…

"I'll see you later!" yells the girl. "At the Academy!"

The sunlight momentarily blinds him as they move out from the dark interior of the airship and into the brilliance of midafternoon outside. But it's not just the glare of sunlight that forces him to shade his eyes with his hands; it's also the thousands of amber reflections shimmering off the scales of a slender dragon that descends from of the sky and drops into the crowd without a fuss. For a full ten seconds, Jaune is so shocked that he literally cannot breathe. It's a dragon. It's not even one of the winged, calcified, charcoal black monstrosities of Grimm's; this is a twenty foot long serpentine beauty of burning gold.

And that's Ruby, hopping onto the dragon's back and holding herself in place by wrapping her arms around the dragon's neck. A boy with dirty blonde hair on both his head and prehensile tail follows her, his white, unbuttoned shirt billowing away from his tanned torso as he slides right behind Ruby. With that, the dragon leaps into the air, impossibly weaving up into the sky with no apparent form of propulsion.

A collision from behind abruptly reminds Jaune to breathe again. He gasps as he stumbles to his knees—and inhales sharply again as three or four metal cases rain down upon him. Despite the fact that the luggage cart just ran into _him_, a girl cries, "Ugh! Can't you watch where you're going?"

Jaune glances upward, intending to find the speaker's face, but instead finds himself looking up her skirt. The inside of her dress appears to be made of iridescent feathers. He only has time to wonder if her face is just as beautiful as her long legs are before the tip of her boot speedily finds its way into his crotch. "Pervert!" she screams. "Pervert _and_ a klutz!"

Through the haze of pain clouding his vision, Jaune determines that the girl is indeed very beautiful. More of those iridescent feathers that had lined the inside of her skirt also frame the collar and sleeves of her white jacket, giving her the appearance of an albino peacock. Even the scar that runs down the left side of her head doesn't mar her physical attractiveness; however, what does put to a bloody death any charm she might have held is the bitchface she's currently wearing as she demands, "Guards, get this creep out of my sight."

The arms of a green jacket wrap around his shoulders and pull him up to his feet. "Let's go," the security agent grunts, his grip firm as he guides Jaune away.

"My legs…" Jaune groans. "I can't move my legs…"

"She didn't sever your spine," hisses the guard, ushering him away from the ice princess. "And I'm sure you're still fully functional. Com'on now, off you go."

Jaune catches an over-the-shoulder glimpse of slitted pupils in vivid pink irises as the black-haired man gives him a final push. _{Whoa. Maybe it's a faunus thing? What animal of Grimm has pink eyes though?}_

Standing slightly behind the haughty bird-girl is a second guard—but where her dress all about refracting light, this guard's outfit just about swallows up all the surrounding light. The horns that protrude out of his red head of hair make him that much more intimidating, and the mask that completely covers his eyes finishes it all off with a big dose of creepy.

Yeah. Definitely time to make a hasty exit.

He hasn't gone much farther than fifty feet though before he remembers that he has no idea where he's going. His fellow airship passengers had all left the plaza quickly, with firm destinations in mind. They'd been confined to the Menagerie before the war, l all; this city is their second home. Jaune can't believably maintain his disguise as a faunus if it's obvious that he's never been in the faunus city before.

_{Just pick a direction and walk until you find the school. Look confident, like you know where the heck you're going! And then… hide out in the dorm room until you meet the roommate. Make friends! Maybe. Unless we don't have roommates. Or they instantly see through your flimsy disguise and scream for your blood.}_

_{Why did I decide to do this again}_

He just barely avoids faceplanting into the ground when a body hops onto his back. "You look lost!" chirps a gleeful female voice. When Jaune unconsciously hooks his arms underneath his attacker's knees to keep her from sliding off, she cheers… and buries her nose into the crook of his neck. "I knew you were friendly! Still can't smell anything though…"

"Nora, please get off him." A girl wearing golden armor runs up from behind the two of them and pulls the girl off Jaune's back. Though she appears winded, with her waist-length crimson ponytail fanning out across her shoulders, her breathing is controlled and she holds herself with proper posture at all times. "I am so sorry," she apologizes, turning brilliant green eyes on him. "She's very friendly. I swear she doesn't bite."

The piggyback girl bounces between Jaune and the redhead eagerly. "See, he's friendly! I _sensed_ it, even if I couldn't smell it."

The redhead puts a calming hand on the energetic girl's shoulder. "Where are my manners? I'm Pyrrha, and this is Nora."

"We just met," Nora adds. "But we're both going to Zodiac, and this is my first year so I don't really know anybody except for Ren; but he's on duty so I can't exactly talk to him without getting on the pretty Rooster's very sensitive nerves. Plus our Clans have never really gotten along, so I'm just going to avoid her for the entire school year hopefully. But Pyrrha, she just has that wonderful _motherly_ scent that—"

Pyrrha wraps a hand around Nora's mouth. "What's your name?" she asks, a blushing tinting her cheeks.

"Uh… I'm…"

For what feels like the hundredth time today, another stranger drops out of the blue and into his life—except this newest girl literally jumps down from a rooftop, tucking her body and rolling to her feet the moment she hits the ground. "I've been looking everywhere for you," she complains as she strolls towards them. "Let's go, Jaune."

Jaune's breath hitches as she says his name casually. He's pretty sure he's never met this girl before. Black hair topped with a large bowtie, a bladed firearm magnetized to her back… and golden irises with slitted pupils. Faunus. A faunus with a weapon. A secret faunus agent with a weapon, looking for him and already knowing his name?

_{She's coming to off me—or worse, just make me disappear. Here lies Jaune Arc, a human failure for seventeen years.}_

His imagination is so busy running through all the possible ways he could die a brutal death that he can barely speak. "Uh, I—"

The ninja of doom places her left hand on his shoulder before he can escape, marking him as her territory. She addresses Nora and Pyrrha when she says, "We'll see you two at the Academy, right?"

Nora nods eagerly. Pyrrha doesn't look too convinced. "Sure… I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name."

The assassin's grip on his shoulder tightens, but she speaks lightly. "Blake. Blake Belladonna."

As Pyrrha extends her hand, her entire demeanor shifts. She seems to become even more regal and confident as she greets, "Pyrrha Nikos of the Tiger."

For just a second, Pyrrha's green eyes flicker to Jaune—and he gets it. By stating her rank, Pyrrha has ensured that Blake can't refuse her handshake, as well as letting her know just who she's dealing with. And by extending her left hand, Pyrrha is forcing Blake to release Jaune's shoulder, if even for a second.

She's giving him the chance to run.

But the problem is, can he? The enemy had dropped from a rooftop without a care. She could easily shoot him in the back before he got further than a couple feet. Would Pyrrha, a girl he'd met only minutes ago, cover him?

Or is Pyrrha expecting him to fight Blake? Faunus were more prone to physical displays of aggression to establish their dominance—it's half the reason why the war started in the first place. That's why Jaune chose Menagerie as the location to hone his skills as a warrior, though he has to constantly remind his sorry butt of this reason: it's because faunus generally don't talk. They don't think, just act… and fight.

Pyrrha might not be fighting for him because it might dirty her noble standing, or more likely she just doesn't see any benefit for her in helping Jaune more than she already has. But Nora… her gleeful expression hasn't changed a bit. Does she not sense hostility from Blake? She jumped his bones without fear of violent retaliation and saw goodness in Pyrrha. Is there a reason she isn't frowning upon Blake's kidnapping of him?

Is it just his own crazy imagination running away from him, making him see Blake as an angel of death who's about to off him?

_{No, shut up. She's just a faunus girl… with a weapon… who knows my name… and was looking for me.}_

_{Is it too late too run?}_

In the time that Jaune has taken to weigh his options, Blake shakes Pyrrha's hand.

Just like that.

And now she's back to gripping his shoulder and steering him in the other direction.

"It was nice meeting you, Jaune!" Pyrrha calls as Blake pushes Jaune away.

"See you later, friend!" adds Nora.

Jaune lifts his hand in a half-hearted wave. "Uhh… see ya…" _{If I survive…}_

Blake lets her hand drop, though she remains behind him, following. She seems to let him lead the way, so Jaune sticks to populated streets. "So… Blake…" he murmurs, glancing over his shoulder. "You're not going to, uh, make me… disappear, are you?"

Blake rolls her eyes. "You were right to trust the Dog."

"I… what?"

"The Dog, on the other hand, wasn't right to trust you." She's walking rather close behind him, so all she has to do is lean forward slightly to whisper in his ear, "Maybe even the Tigress couldn't sense it, but both you and I know that you don't exactly belong here."

Jaune freezes in place. Blake surprisingly doesn't crash into him, though her lips _do_ graze his ear lobe. He tries to stammer out a response, but Blake cuts him off. "Don't worry, I'm not about to go revealing your identity. We all have secrets to hide, after all."

The second her lips stop tickling his ear, he whirls around. Somehow Blake is already six feet away, walking down the street with her hands held carelessly behind her back. "Blake?"

She doesn't turn around, though she does reply, "If you ever need help, you know where you can find me."

Wait. Is that it? Did she really steal him away from Pyrrha and Nora to tell him that she knew who—what he is? Or is this a veiled threat? Is she manipulating him? What does she want?

Jaune shakes his head. He needs to deal with the more important matters now, like…

"Blake? Uh… I need help. How do I get to the Academy?"

* * *

_Author's Note: Because this is an alternate universe, the rules of the universe will be slightly different. So did you guess which character was what zodiac animal?_

**_Main Characters_**_:  
Jaune Arc  
Blake Belladonna_

**_Ensemble Cast_**_:  
Ruby Rose  
Yang Xiao Long  
Weiss Schnee  
Nora Valkyrie  
Lie Ren  
Pyrrha Nikos  
Cardin Winchester  
Melanie and Miltiades Malachite  
Adam Taurus  
Sun Wukong  
Velvet Scarletina_

**_Chinese Zodiac_**_:  
Mouse  
Ox  
Tiger  
Rabbit  
Dragon  
Snake  
Horse  
Sheep  
Monkey  
Rooster  
Dog  
Boar  
Note: the Cat is not part of the Chinese zodiac._


	2. Cat Eyes

She knew it was him the moment she laid eyes on him. A distant memory of long past, practically another life. She looked back upon that little girl and that little boy with a hint of nostalgia and a fair amount of envy, but that history was now tarnished with a little seed of doubt… one that sprouted the instant his eyes passed right over her without any sort of recognition.

She'd been expecting that. She'd changed a lot in ten years.

It didn't stop the disappointment from welling up in her heart.

* * *

**Chapter Two: Cat Eyes**

* * *

"You have very beautiful eyes."

"Focus."

"I'm just saying, the way your golden irises pull around the vertical slits of those pupils is—"

"Shut up."

"…"

"Maintaining eye contact is probably the most important thing when it comes to dominance. That means no twitching eyelids. Your left one."

Jaune breaks eye contact by burying his face in his hands. "I can't do this," he moans. "How the heck am I supposed to learn Faunus 101 in fifteen minutes when I failed Basic Psychology?"

Blake gives a little _hmph _as she leans against the brick wall of the alley they'd retreated to. She'd insisted he needed a crash course in faunus behavior after he smiled and waved at the Rabbit he'd sat next to on the airship, and said bunny girl had immediately scampered for cover. "This is a way of _life_, Jaune, not a class." A pause. "Nobody in combat training takes a psychology class."

"I, uh… I'm a late bloomer, so my dad, uh, I mean… Hey, look at this!" Jaune flexes his arm and pushes a finger underneath his shoulder guard. "See? Muscle!"

"What are you doing sneaking into a _battle school_ without basic combat training?"

Jaune looks anywhere but at his (buddy? companion? mentor?) acquaintance. _{How much can I let her know? She already holds power over me just by knowing who I am—and I can't forget that she knew my name beforehand. How many secrets should I keep from her? How much should I share? I can't really integrate into faunus society well without at least pretending to open up in some way. I need an alibi.} _

Blake sighs. "If you're just going to make something up, the least you could do is look convincing." She mimes a contemplating look before turning judgmental eyes upon him. "That was your thinking face. It's a defining human trait. You're obviously going to lie."

"No! I… I was just… thinking about how to phrase it. Hee." He mentally beats his head against a wall at the nervous little giggle; like that wasn't at all suspicious. "I'm not the best fighter, as you've probably, um, noticed."

Blake folds her arms across her chest expectantly.

"My dad, he noticed this. The day I broke two arms and four legs. Only one of them was mine, y'know… just my left arm. It's actually sort of a funny stor…" And he would have continued into the tale of how he accidentally blew up a shipment of Dust with a plunger and two marshmallows had not Blake nailed him with a deadpan glare. "Uh, never mind. The whole shindig was caught on the security cameras, though. How I managed to not snap my neck or lose a leg andIknowthisisn'tmakingmelookgoodatall but really, I swear, getting out of that situation without losing a head or two took a lot of on-the-spot thinking." He beams proudly. "In the end, my dad saw my brains in action and decided I was a better fit for strategy!"

Blake only has to raise a single eyebrow to pop Jaune's bubble of confidence.

"Okay, fine," he huffs. "Luck might have played a… minor role."

The eyebrow climbs upwards a millimeter.

"A small miracle?"

His acquaintance seems to take this as an acceptable answer and drops the eyebrow.

"But that's why I'm here in Menagerie," he adds hurriedly. "You know, to increase my odds. Of pwning. And stuff."

"Your papers."

"Huh?"

"Never mind that you need transcripts to get into battle school, like qualifications, achievements, awards. Tell me your backstory. Who are you?"

She already knows too much about him. Even worse, she somehow knows when he's lying, so he's left to tell her nothing but the truth. Slowly, he's just going to feed her more and more of his identity, filling in her blanks, until she has complete mastery over him. How did he manage to get himself into this situation not an hour after touching down in Menagerie?

"You're wearing your Thinking Face again."

"Uh—"

"Don't get the wrong impression: lying is good. It's the only way we—you're going to survive at Zodiac Academy." She takes a couple steps until she's right up in his face, and even though she's shorter than he is, her burning golden eyes stare him down effectively. "But you better be damn believable when you look straight into their eyes and lie. Some faunus build entire networks based off trust. Sheep. Boars. Tigers. _Dogs_." Her lips curl in disgust. "If they ever find out that you're not really who you say you are, you will _crush_ their world—and they'll come back at you to make sure you feel the same way."

Spooked, Jaune takes a step back and hits the alley wall behind him. "Okay. I got it."

Blake closes the gap yet again, trapping him simply by placing her arms on either side of his body and leaning in. "Do you?"

She is dangerously close. Terrifyingly so. Not one part of her body is touching him, yet she may as well have plastered him to the wall with her aggressive dominance. The tiny part of Jaune's mind that isn't peeing its pants takes note in how effective her body language is. Eyes mostly; black pupils narrowed to slits. A low growl in her throat. Arms caging him in. Her bowtie is interestingly flattened against her black hair; and he's probably a terrible person, because it's this sight that snaps him out of his fear. She looks like a pissed cat.

...Is she a pissed Cat?

He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and looks her dead on in the eyes. "Fine. Tell me how to lie."

Blake leans in past his face, her lips tickling his ear again. "The best lies have a grain of truth in them. Start there, build on it, and keep telling it to yourself until you believe it. Then you can believably tell everybody your new truth."

Jaune maybe hears like half of what she says, because the second that his mind is no longer quivering in fear, it becomes _very _aware of how Blake's body is practically on top of his. _{Rowr. No, have to tame the tiger…} _"Uh… do you really have to be this close?"

"I suppose I could let your face be seen by the ice princess currently blocking the entrance to this alleyway."

Jaune doesn't even need to look past Blake's head, because said ice princess conveniently screeches right then, "Ugh! You dolt, what do you mean we're missing one?"

It is pure reflexes that forces Jaune to find the safest hiding spot: behind Blake's back. "Eep."

"Your job was to guard the _cases, _Taurus," shrieks the girl hysterically. "I can handle difficulty just fine on my own. Lie Ren!"

"I'm on it." A streak of green blurs straight up a two-story building, materializing upon the roof as that magneta-eyed guard who'd pulled Jaune to his feet earlier. He remains poised there for a second as if frozen in time; then, so quickly that Jaune would have missed it had he blinked, the man darts into the distance, leaping from roof to roof. Though his movement is so ridiculously fast that he almost vanishes from sight, it's not constant—more like a moment of deceptive peace shattered by a lightning strike.

And then he's gone, leaving the ice princess and her scary guard #2.

"I can't believe this!" the white-haired girl rants, stalking back and forth angrily. The light refracts off the feathers of her jacket at a thousand different angles—a shifting crystalline rainbow that Jaune would appreciate tons more if he wasn't terrified about possibly losing functionality of his family jewels in the near future. "How could we lose a case? We never encountered any thieves…"

The back of the redheaded guard is turned towards them, so Jaune can't hear what he's mumbling—but icy terror floods through his veins when the girl exclaims, "The perverted klutz!"

Blake shrugs his hand off her shoulder. He realizes that he's been squeezing it with a death grip. "I'll distract her," she says offhandedly.

"You'll… you'll what?"

Blake points up, then to the left. "Use the fire escape and head that way. Zodiac Academy is a massive multi-ecosystemic bio—"

"Say wha?"

Blake sighs. "It's a really big place."

"Ohhh."

"We're only a couple blocks away, so just pick an uphill direction and run for it and you should eventually hit a wall or gate. I'll distract the Heiress Schnee in the meanwhile."

Jaune hesitates for a slight second. Maybe he's just being too suspicious, but it kind of feels like… well, Blake's doing a lot of stuff for him. Like he keeps on owing her more and more, especially since they're still practically strangers. She's pretty much led him to the Academy, coached him on basic faunus behavior, and even now is covering his escape from another girl who'd called him a pervert. _{For someone who laughs at Dogs and Tigers, Blake is putting an awfully large amount of trust in this weird senpai-kohai relationship we have going on.}_

"Why are you doing this for me?"

"Would you believe me if I said that it was out of the goodness of my heart?"

"You're lying." The words have slipped out of his mouth before he can suck them back in, and he immediately regrets it… especially when he catches the tiniest of smirks curling a corner of Blake's mouth upwards.

"Would you like me to introduce you to Weiss Schnee proper?" she asks instead, an exaggerated look of innocence on her face. "I'm sure the daughter of the general who brought the Faunus War to a relatively diplomatic conclusion would love to meet the mysterious human who copped a feel on her."

"All I did was look up her skirt! By complete accident… y'know, I'm just going to leave now."

* * *

Jaune supposes that he should have expected it… but the building he'd climbed up only has one fire escape.

His original plan had been to wait for the ice princess—Weiss—to move on, or for Blake to at least draw her away. That didn't happen, of course, and Jaune remembered that she was probably waiting for the ridiculously fast magenta-eyed guard to return. Speaking of which… what if he _did_ come back before Jaune could leave, and Weiss spotted and sic'd her guards on him? If that green guard punched him while moving at top speed…

His aura might protect him. Strategy lessons said something about aura being the physical manifestations of human souls, psychology mumbo jumbo, yadda yadda yadda. It's mostly a subconscious thing that kicks in whenever you need it, so Jaune is fine to leave it at that.

Some people can activate their aura whenever they _want_ to though. His brother's girlfriend had been able to use her aura to enhance flame Dust, turning her into a hot bomb specialist. Jaune didn't care too much about her because she was just as nasty and spiteful as Roman was, but at some deep familial level, he'd worried for their safeties when they'd fought in the Faunus War.

Roman came back from the War; his girlfriend didn't.

Funny how Blake had described the Battle of Fort Castle as "relatively diplomatic," because it had been a _bloodbath_. Literally. Attacking under the cover of night was disadvantageous only to the humans, and all fiery and wind attacks with Dust were washed aside by an unknown source of water. When the sun rose, the surrounded lands were stained crimson—all diluted with aforementioned water, yeah, but the exaggerated sight was pretty horrible for human morale. After a few more skirmishes, the War drew to a close and faunus were granted their freedom from Menagerie.

Though many faunus streamed out of Menagerie and established colonies throughout the continent, many stayed behind within their particular Clan territories. Jaune supposes that forcing all faunus into a tiny area had been good in the sense that it united long-separated faunus families: the Twelve Clans against the common enemy of humankind. This was pretty much why no human has ever attempted to live within the Menagerie… up until today. A defining moment history in the making, starring Jaune Arc!

That is the reason why Jaune cannot lose his family jewels (and die) at the hands of the daughter of the man who washed his fortress in the watery blood of a thousand human soldiers. He's making history here. He's continuing the Arc family legacy—no, he's taking it one step farther, learning how to best fight the creatures of Grimm from the descendants of said monsters.

That one step. Just one step off the edge of this two-story building to make history.

Hopefully his aura will kick in by the time he hits the ground so he doesn't shatter all the bones of his legs.

* * *

And that is how he ends at the front gates of Zodiac with a slow stream of blood trickling down the left side of his face.

It's just a superficial scratch from faceplanting into the pavement at much higher speeds than he's used to. The problem with head wounds is that they bleed. A lot. At least his aura had kicked in before he hit the pavement. Faceplanting into the ground at that velocity without any protection should have shoved his nose, boogers and all, up into his brain.

As is, Jaune's dealing by pulling the hood of his black sweater up and over his head. It soaks up a little bit of the blood, but its main purpose is to mask his identity as the dumb blonde who got wounded before even starting battle school.

Curse his stupid luck, because somebody steps into his path and refuses to move. "Like, are you okay?"

Though the speaker is also wearing red, it isn't Ruby. With his hood covering his upper field of vision, all he registers is that her crimson-colored boots run up past the knee. _{Seriously, who needs boots that tall?}_ He pulls his hood down as far as it can go and tries to push forward anyways. "I'm fine," he says curtly, shrugging off her hand.

The girl plants herself in front of him again. "You're hurt," she states. "I can totally help; I'm a Sheep."

"I've had a pretty rough day, sorry. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to find my dorm and die a silent death of embarrassment. Alone."

"Ooooh. I knew I recognized you. You're the guy that my sister totally kicked in the head."

That's when he finally looks up and recognizes her as well—the strapless red dress, the long red gloves, the thigh-high red boots. Miltia, the quiet twin. Aside from clothing, she could be could easily be mistaken for her sister; now that she's standing right next to him though, Jaune spots a few key differences. Compared to the flowing straight hair of her twin-in-white, Miltia's is much curlier. It also meshes well with the fluffy collar of black fur she wears atop her shoulders, so much that it almost looks like the hair-and-mini-cloak thing is all one piece. There are no sharp weapons attached to her boots; instead, a set of boxes rest on her wrists. They probably shoot ninja stars. Or lasers.

Reluctantly, he pulls off his hood and gestures in the general direction of his head. "It's nothing. Just… just a flesh wound."

Miltia's eyebrows furrow slightly. "If it's just superficial, you should have, like, healed already." Her hand is surprisingly firm when she grabs a fistful of his black sweater, but a second later she releases a bit of her grip and becomes very uncertain, losing the ditzy speech in the process. "May I?"

"Can you what again?"

Irritation flickers across her face as she gently pulls him down to her level so that they're face to face. "I'm a Sheep," she enunciates very slowly.

"Er… you really don't have to…" He is really failing at life right now, because she's definitely implying that being a Sheep means something significant, and that any respectable faunus should know what she's talking about. "…do whatever you're planning on doing."

The edges of her mouth curl upwards in a tiny smile. "But it's just a flesh wound," she echoes, lifting her right hand to his forehead.

Her touch is extremely warm; almost hot, but not uncomfortably so, and it pulses down from the site of touch to ripple down his head and shoulders. Her eyes slip closed as the warmth flows down him and she murmurs, "Your chakras are so stagnant. Haven't you ever used your semblance?"

Okay, that's scary. Miltia is glowing. A haunting white light seeps out of all her pores and from between her closed eyelids as, just like that, the throbbing pain of his head wound vanishes. The base of his neck blossoms in warmth soon afterwards; the effect trickles down his body, flowing through paths of energy down his spine and upper arms.

_{Sheep are healers, dammit. Why can't I remember this?}_

"What did you—" He cuts himself off when her knees buckle, barely managing to catch her before she hits the ground. "Miltia! Are you okay?"

The girl braces herself against Jaune, seemingly unable to stand. "So weak."

He awkwardly lowers her to the ground till they're both kneeling, though she still clings to him for support. "You really shouldn't have."

Despite her apparent fatigue, she manages to give him a half-lidded glare. "I was talking about you," she slurs. "With your chakras blocked for so long… how did you even survive the War with an aura so weak?"

"I… uh…"

She slumps back onto her own heels. "I opened up your first chakra." She's abruptly back to being shy and embarrassed, avoiding his gaze. "The… survival chakra, blocked by, um. Fear."

Oh. He does remember something like this from classes. Metaphysical lines of energy in the body or something. "Those… uh, chakras… they're not real."

He could have worded that a lot better, because Miltia glowers at him. "Chakras are not physical," she snaps, "But they are still very real." Again, her anger subsides rapidly and she's back to being awkwardly clumsy. "Melanie keeps telling me off for being all preachy about chakras when I have so much trouble keeping my first chakra open and clear." She bravely meets his eyes. "So I know how you feel. About getting into battle school, even though you aren't a warrior."

Jaune nods wordlessly.

Miltia takes this as encouragement to continue. "I wasn't sure at first when, um, Melanie said that she'd help me if I accepted the offer. Medics… should still be able to fight, she said. Look at the Battle of Fort Hospice; we lost all our Dragons but one that day. And I saw that, but I just didn't think that… y'know, since we totally aren't fighting anymore. We've reached a peace, and peace is great, right? But then she was like, just in case… just in case we do begin fighting again, I should totally be able to defend myself. Fight for myself. Win for myself." She looks into his eyes again, gaze confident and proud (and speech right back to imitating her sister's). "That's totally like why we're here, right?"

It's completely disorienting to hear his reasons for fighting repeated from the other side—the former enemy's side. Still, he nods and helps Miltia to her feet when the girl tries to get back to her feet. "Where's your guard?" he asks to change the subject.

"Who, Cardin?" Miltia sneers quietly. "Father was like, if the Heiress Schnee has guards, so should the Malachites."

Schnee. Malachite. Though he has no clue what these names mean, he remembers that Blake's advice to not let his ignorance show. He can probably assume that they're big. War generals? Company holders?

"So your dad hired a Boar?"

"More like a pig," she snorts, cocking her hip. It doesn't look very natural on Miltia's body; it does look like something Melanie would do though. "You'd totally be a better guard than he is."

"Uh… thanks?"

"That totally wasn't supposed to be a compliment." She looks him over. "How do you even fight?" When he hesitates, she adds, "Don't worry about revealing your weapon. Schnee might still pretend to be all about honor, but Malachites have always fought to win." Right when she speaks that last word, she curls her hands into fists and punches the air. Each forward thrust causes wickedly sharp crimson claws to shoot out of the little boxes on her wrists with a clean _shink._

Jaune takes a step back. "Whoa!"

Encouraged, Miltia mimes another two punches, performs a series of backflips to put a bit of distance between them, and rapidly closes that difference with the same gliding-on-ice effect that her twin had exhibited right before she'd kicked him in the head.

_{Not again!}_

Jaune's prepared this time, grabbing and expanding his shield to protectively shove it into Miltia's path. He immediately regrets doing so when she collapses against it with a yelp. To make things worse, he doesn't even get to apologize before a powerful force slams into his side and sends him flying. His shield bounces away as he rolls on the pavement, though his aura coupled with his leather gear protect him from scratches and bruises. He spins a little bit more to carry him safely out of his attacker's physical reach before using his limbs to bring himself to a skittering stop in a crouched position, ready to throw himself out of the way of incoming firepower.

Yeah, he's had his fair share of dealing with older brothers literally throwing him around.

There isn't any threat, however. His attacker is Cardin, and though Boars are powerhouses, they're not exactly fast. Before Cardin can take another step forward, Miltia leaps to her feet in between the two of them, her arms spread apart. "Don't!"

Cardin places an arm on her shoulder as if to throw her to the side before apparently remembering that his job is to _protect_ her. "He was attacking you," he growls.

"He was just defending himself," she corrects almost too quietly for him to hear, though he doesn't miss the glare she sends his way over her shoulder. "Though I totally wasn't actually attacking him. It just, like, looked a lot like it."

Cardin shakes his head and tries to push past her, insisting, "He tried to hurt you."

Though Miltia is at least a head shorter than Cardin, she maintains her ground and refuses to let him pass. "Don't touch him," she snarls just as fiercely, staring straight up into his eyes. "I know what you're doing. He doesn't, but I can say in total confidence that he's, like, not interested."

Cardin doesn't move, though he seems to grow more uncomfortable the longer Miltia maintains direct eye contact with him; finally, he drops his eyes and stands down.

_{Eye contact in action. Hm. Shouldn't be too hard—}_

When Miltia approaches him, though, there is so much imposing _presence_ rolling off her that he finds it hard to look into her eyes (though he _does_ pops up to his feet to, y'know, to make it a bit easier.)

"I'm here at Zodiac to keep my first chakra open," Miltia says softly. "But I got the feeling that your chakras have been closed for a while… and if you're going to survive here, you need those cleared."

"Uh, are you suggesting…?"

Miltia looks at him as if he's being particularly dense. "You totally have six more chakras that need to be opened if you're going to survive Zodiac Academy."

"Oh."

"Here." She presses a small bottle into his palm. "You saw how much energy it took me to open just one of yours, remember? It'll probably take me a few days to recover, so you'll need this if you want to pass Initiation tomorrow." With that, she rejoins Cardin's side and starts pulling the larger man away.

"Wait. _Initiation?_"

Miltia doesn't look back, however, leaving Jaune alone in the courtyard of Zodiac.

He glances down at the glass flask curled in his fist. The substance inside seems to shimmer with a pale blue light; particles that flow in a strangely fluid manner. Dust—though the cap that plugs the bottle neck doesn't have his dad's dark green gear insignia that marks it as human-made. Instead, there's what looks like a simple five-petaled white flower. Faunus-made Dust?

Well. Six more of those metaphysical energy thingies to open up over the next couple days. Huh._ {First Ruby, then Nora and Pyrrha, Blake, and now Miltia. Congratulations, Jaune: a first day full of **ladies**. Not a bad—}_

For the second time today, he finds his cheek unexpectedly pressed against the ground. He blinks, not sure how he got there—until a strong hand grabs the front of his shirt and easily lifts him off the ground until they're eye to eye. Though a white mask with red flame-like markings all over it hides his attacker's entire upper face, Jaune catches just the smallest glimmer through the four slots in the mask. They don't look very happy.

Eye contact. Blake said eye contact. It's hard though because there are only two eye slots on each side of the mask. And there's the fact that this is Scary Guard #2, and where the guard is…

"Drop him, Taurus," comes the expected voice of the one and only Weiss Schnee. "I'll deal with him myself."

* * *

_Author's Rant_

_Whew! There was an amazing response to the first chapter. Guess I've got to keep up with you guys then… _

_I had quite a few people suggest Ruby as the Dog. M__y reasons for matching character personalities to zodiac animals will be discussed next chapter when more characters have been properly introduced, but I'd like to say that you're all free to take this AU and let your own imaginations run free with it. There aren't any other faunus AUs in this fandom as far as I could tell. So change up characters as you see fit or keep everybody the way they are - just link the story back to me!_

_I suppose I should mention that as a medical student, school comes first. Thankfully, I've gotten a great response on this too; I can only hope that y'all will be patient enough to stick around for slow updates, and I in turn will try to give out longer chapters (~4000 words)__. _

_Thanks for your feedback._


	3. Birds of a Feather

Horses had long since given up any semblance of honor. They fought tooth and nail to defeat and conquer. They fought to win. But what was victory truly mean if it was ill-gained?

That was what Father said, right before he set out to accomplish the most dishonorable deed known to faunuskind.

And left her behind to shoulder an impossible burden alone.

* * *

**Chapter Three: Birds of a Feather**

* * *

Eye contact. That's what Blake said. Keep eye contact, don't back down, and don't—

Oh hey, that's Blake standing right behind Weiss, looking indifferent to the entire world… and also subtly drawing a finger across her throat.

_{Say what now?}_

"Look at me!" commands Weiss, snapping her fingers in his eyes. He focuses in on her ice blue eyes again—very pretty, with round pupils like a human's—but using his peripheral vision, he catches Blake shaking her head subtly.

"Um, I'm sorry," apologizes Jaune weakly. "I was on the ground, you see…"

"Trying to sneak a peek!" the ice princess rages.

Blake frantically slashes her finger across her throat multiple times, then mimes being very, very dead, but his lips is already moving: "You knocked me to the ground at your feet first!"

Jaune swears that an entire section of the courtyard around them ices over instantly—plant life spontaneously splinters into frozen shards, moisture drops straight out the of the air in the form of light snow, and the blood literally freezes in his veins. He can't move a muscle when Weiss whispers dangerously, "You dare accuse me of personal harm when _you_ were the one to harm me first through thievery?"

Oh. That.

He looks at Blake for help.

Blake appears to be watching a bird in the other direction.

He meets Weiss' eyes again, refusing to back down. _{Just like Blake said an hour ago, even though a minute ago she seemed to be hinting certain death if I obeyed what she'd said to do an hour ago. Ugh. Women.} _"I didn't steal anything from you."

"You humiliate me to lower my guard and then you take my—you take something valuable from me," Weiss accuses. "And you single-handedly defeated both my guards! Without even fighting them moreover."

Huh. Flattering. "I—"

"Surely you quite the opponent." Her eyes narrow critically. "Tell me, from which Clan do you herald from? Horse, those jealous competitors? Or perhaps Monkey? Conniving tricksters, they are."

"Uh, yeah, sure!" Monkeys were pretty close to humans, right? Close enough. Until he sees Blake facepalming in the background and remembers that he has papers and they probably say something else. _{Oh well. Lying to the Heiress of the faunus corporation that apparently ended the War can't be too harmful, can it?} _

...Yeah.

_{Well hopefully she won't find out until much later. Much, much later.}_

"He's not Monkey, I'm pretty sure of that," calls a voice from above. All gazes are drawn up into the sky, just in time to be blinded by a gigantic golden explosion of sunlight and warmth. In the seconds that it takes to clear the green and purple sunspots from his vision, Jaune hears two thuds nearby as two individuals make solid landings.

"Oh lookie, fresh meat!" cries an exuberant female's voice. "Mm hm, you're pretty hot." A tiny squeak from Blake. "Hey Adam. Hi Ren. Ooo, and what are you?"

Jaune blinks as shadow falls over him—and then the speaker is hugging him, and he personally experiences why Blake could only say "Hieugh" when a very generous chest squeezes all the air out of his lungs.

She ruffles his hair. "Well, you're a thing. Definitely not a shexy smexy Monkey though."

With his vision finally cleared, Jaune observes the blonde before him. In addition to having boobs of steel, she's decked out in mostly yellow, gold, and tan. Her long mane of hair is perfectly sculpted to look messily carefree, but what stands out most is her vivid red eyes—except she blinks and the color of her eyes are a warm blue.

_{Did I imagine that?}_

He glances over to Lie Ren, who doesn't appear to be dazed at all by the earlier flash explosion. The guy still has pink irises, yeah. So a girl with red eyes isn't that unusual.

_{But a girl whose eyes change color in a literal blink of a second?}_

"Ahem?" Weiss says expectantly in the background.

"Whaddya know?" the blonde continues blissfully. "All the Directors in one place."

Jaune glances around at everybody present. To his left, Weiss fumes with her bodyguards, Ren amd Taurus (Adam?) flanking her. Blake stands a little off to the side, her eyes resting on the two opposing blondes. Jaune recognizes the tanned boy with the unbuttoned shirt who'd hopped onto the dragon right after Ruby... which means... _{no. Really? **She's **the dragon. The blonde girl. She can turn into a Dragon at will, and judging from the midair explosion, straight back into a faunus whenever she wants.}_

Holy Light. He's currently standing right next to one of the last Dragons in the world. That leaves him speechless for a minute, in which the conversation continues without a regard to him and his awe.

"And to whom do I have the pleasure of meeting here?" Weiss asks scathingly, eyes narrowed at the Dragon girl.

Though the blonde girl very blatantly ignores her, the blonde Monkey is quick to snatch up the dropped ball by filling the treacherous quiet with pointless small talk. "It's like fate brought the school Directors together on the first day," he says grandly, gesturing to himself, Yang, Ren, and Adam in turn. "Dragon of the East, Phoenix of the South, Tigress of the West, and Tortoise of the North. The four different directions of faunus converging on the same spot."

"Deep," Adam rumbles. "So what do you want?"

"Oh, we just felt like you might want this little something-something," replies the Dragon girl cheerfully, digging something out from between her breasts. "We found it sitting on the street and decided to return it to you."

Weiss gasps. "That's my—"

"Whoa little birdie, hold on there," the Dragon chuckles condescendingly as she holds a small rectangular object out of Weiss' reach. For all Jaune can tell, it looks like a small, highly decorated wooden box, and yes, it could have easily nestled within the girl's cleavage. Ahem. "I'd like to return it to a trustworthy keeper."

"I _am_ its _owner_," Weiss snaps furiously.

There's no mistaking it this time—the Dragon girl's eyes flare a wicked red. "Don't you _dare_ say that," she snarls.

"I'll say it for as long as it's true," declares the ice princess. The feathers on the collar of her jacket rise upwards as if in a display of aggression. Jaune has the feeling that their section of the courtyard is going to frost over again—until he sees the air wavering around the Dragon girl as golden wisps of flame float off her hair.

Before things can get too serious, though, the Monkey deftly snatches up the box from the Dragon's hand and dances over to Adam. "There we go," he says lightly as he deposits the ornate box into the masked Ox's hands. "Safe within the hands of the Tortoise. Miss Schnee, you get your stolen treasure back. Yang, remember that you represent your school. Calm your tits down."

The Dragon girl inhales deeply, seemingly sucking in all the flames that flicker across her body. She closes her eyes and punches her fists together to extinguish the last of the fire, and when she looks at them all again with a cheeky grin on her face, her irises are once again a warm blue. "My tits are all good to go." She very obviously winks at Blake.

Blake is once again staring at a bird in the other direction.

"Thieves, all of you," Weiss growls. "Let's go, Taurus. Forget maximum security—I want a step above that. Nobody even _sees_ the box." She glares at Yang specifically.

Yang only winks in response, and guffaws loudly as Weiss huffs and stomps away. "That was a thing," she declares, turning to face Jaune. With a small amount of panic, he only just realizes Blake quietly following Weiss towards the school building, leaving him alone with two blondes who could easily pick him and his lies apart in seconds.

_{Ruby is friends with these people? How much can I trust her as a friend if she could just as easily turn around and pass information onto them? Most importantly—}_

"Wasn't Ruby with you?" he blurts.

"My little sis?" Yang asks. She turns to the Monkey. "Oh my Light, Sun, is this the guy she was blabbering about?"

The Monkey closes one eye, does half a cartwheel to suspend himself upside down on one hand, and squints at him. "Maybe?"

"Uh, hi. Jaune Arc. I met Ruby… on the ship." _{Flat on the floor after upchucking my lunch. Hopefully she didn't tell you that.}_

Yang tilts her head and squints at him. "Does he look like a Vomit Boy?"

"Only one way to tell," Sun smirks, flipping to his feet. He doesn't slow down even upon popping Jaune's personal bubble, and he blocks Jaune's reactive retreat by gripping the back of his head with one hand. The Monkey grins mischievously and winks as Jaune struggles weakly, knowing but not quite believing what the other boy's about to—

Their lips crash together awkwardly. It's not even really a kiss because Sun sticks his tongue down Jaune's throat soon afterwards, causing Jaune to use a strength he didn't know he had to wrangle himself free of his attacker's grasp. "What are you doing?" he splutters, losing his balance and landing on his butt.

Sun smacks his lips and appears to be tasting his own tongue before hazarding a guess. "Bacon-cheese omelet sandwich?"

"Uh—"

"Aw you're so adorkable!" Yang sweeps him off the ground in a full-body, bone-crushing hug that lasts much longer than necessary; Jaune barely avoids losing consciousness by the time she releases him. "So what are you? You've got to be one of the Twelve, otherwise Ice Princess wouldn't have even bothered murdering your public image in person. Sun says not Monkey, so… rebellious meat-eating Rabbit? Cannibal Pig? Either way, anybody who eats Rooster fetuses is good in my book." The color of her irises progressively gains tints of lilac purple before abruptly fading back to neutral blue. "Wait, this is my little sis we're talking about. You better be a well-behaved little bunny, you hear?"

Jaune glances back and forth between Sun and Yang. Despite Yang's chattering, both seem to be expecting an answer. _{Don't hesitate,}_ Blake's voice whispers in his head, while at the same time he bemoans, _{Man oh man, I should have thought something up—}_

"Possum," he blurts.

Silence.

_{Mental facewall. Thud, thud, thud. Too late to turn back now though.}_ "I'm... I'm a Possum," he states firmly while internally wincing.

"Huh," says Sun slowly. He doesn't look entirely convinced. "Never had a Possum here before."

"They're not exactly a fighting species, that's for sure," agrees Yang, though she's got that warm glint of bluish purple in her eyes. "A nonconformist Possum here at Zodiac! This is perfect!" She hugs Jaune again, who's prepared this time and takes a huge breath before her substantial chest crushes his. "I can't wait to see how you manage to survive Initiation tomorrow!"

He freezes. _{Initiation.}_ The bottle of Dust that Miltia had given him earlier weighs heavily in his pocket. "Hey… about that…"

"Don't worry about it; only a few weaklings are horribly mangled and disfigured for life every year. I'm sure you'll do fine with your. Um." She peers at him closely. "How _do_ Possums fight?"

He's being completely honest when he answers, "That's why I'm here. To find out."

He catches a glimpse of Sun looking very doubtful before Yang playfully punches him in the shoulder—though it's probably meant to be playful from a Dragon's point of view, because Jaune is literally knocked back a good distance before he manages to back-somersault and backflip twice into a crouching position, ready to dodge again at a moment's notice.

Yang laughs in delight. "See! That right there, that was pretty good."

Sun folds his arms and raises an eyebrow. "For a five-year old Monkey, sure."

"Aw, shut up." When Yang punches him, the impact doesn't even seem to faze the Monkey. "He's a cute and super ambitious twenty-some Possum, remember?" She hooks her arm into Sun's, pecks him on the cheek, and begins to draw him towards the school. "Toodles, Jaune. Hope you find what you're looking for."

* * *

A green-eyed girl with straight shoulder-length orange hair and freckles greets him at the main entrance to the school building. "Saaalutations! Welcome to Zodiac Academy! I am here to help you!"

"Uh, hi," Jaune says. "I, uh, definitely need help."

"Then it is good that I am finally able to meet you, because I am here to help!" The way the girl speaks is very formal and stilted, but she shares the same bright-eyed enthusiasm with Nora that makes her a little friendlier and relatable. She presents to him a metal cylinder about four inches tall, saying, "I bring you gifts of great tidings."

Jaune takes it hesitantly. "Thanks… What is this?"

"This is your official school guide!" the girl chirps. "It is called a Scroll. It is very helpful. It was meant for you, Jaune."

"Uh…" He takes a step back defensively. "How did you… know my—?"

The girl's eyes twinkle. "Oh yes. I forgot that it is also customary for people to respond with their own names in order to become friends. My name is Penny!"

"That wasn't exactly what I was asking for, but it's nice to meet you, Penny." He holds out his hand.

Penny's entire face lights up with happiness, though she doesn't seem to know what to do with his offered hand.

"Jaune? Are you talking to someone?"

Jaune jumps a little in surprise as Pyrrha steps up next to him. "Oh, hey! Pyrrha, this is—" He does a double take at the blinking outline that determines where Penny _used _to be. He glances around in confusion; there is no orange head of hair in sight. "Uh… I swear there was this girl here a second ago…"

Pyrrha gives him a skeptical side-eye. "I'm sorry for interrupting your… conversation. While passing earlier, I noticed how your body language showed defensive distrust, so I decided to lend my assistance." She glances around as well. "Was it that girl in black again?"

"Blake? No, she's a… a friend."

"A friend?" Pyrrha looks quite surprised. "I'll be blunt, Jaune, and say that I don't trust her. She hides many secrets."

"Uhhh reeeally… but don't we all have secrets to hide?" Jaune questions honestly.

"I suppose. But I'd like to think that my friends are people who are open and honest with me when it counts."

He does _not_ flinch. "So… uh… you consider me a friend then?"

Pyrrha half-smiles. "Nora senses the potential for loyalty within you. I sense the potential for honor." She offers her arm to him. "Come, Jaune; would you like to escort me to the auditorium?"

He does _not_ blush like a schoolgirl. Okay, maybe he does a little. Just a little. He also rubs the back of his neck ruefully. "I would… if I wasn't completely lost myself. I was hoping that Penny… uh, never mind."

"Have you not consulted your scroll?"

Oh. The metal cylinder that Penny gave him. Closer inspection reveals a yellow diamond-shaped button in its center which, upon depression, verifies his fingerprint first before splitting the cylinder vertically into two parallel handgrips. As he pulls them apart, a holographic screen flickers to life in the space between.

He remembers his dad carrying one of these around, though he'd never seen the holographic device in its collapsed state before. And back then, as far as Jaune knew, only his dad possessed such a device. He looks up at Pyrrha in wonder. "Do you have one?"

"Not yet, but everybody in the school should receive one upon checking into the auditorium. I'm actually surprised that you've received yours already despite having not checked in. However, I noticed your encounter with all four Heads of Houses earlier." She flashes him a winning smile. "I must applaud your ambition in placing your mark on the Academy already, Jaune of…" She frowns. "What are you?"

_{Facewall. Why. __**Why?**__}_

"Possum," he says miserably.

"Ah." Her face shows nothing but the slightest amount of surprise. "Jaune of Possum?"

Jaune avoids her eyes by searching his scroll for a school directory. "Arc," he mumbles.

"Excuse me?"

"My last name. Jaune Arc. Of…" Well, whatever faunus species is listed on his transcript is probably going to be revealed at some point, so no sense in maintaining this tiny little lie when Pyrrha seems to put so much faith in honesty. "You know what? I lied. I… I'm not from Possum." _{Eye contact. Look her in the eyes. The best lies have a little grain of truth in them. Present your new truth to her.} _"Whatever I was doesn't matter. I'm here at Zodiac to change that."

Pyrrha almost appears to be searching for something in his eyes. For a long moment, she says nothing; finally, she nods slowly. "Fair enough, Jaune Arc." She takes his hand and cups it in both of hers. "Thank you for telling me the truth."

What he just said is actually very true; but where Pyrrha's coming from, she's seeing it from a different angle. Does that make it a lie?

And if she does finally discover who he truly is far in the future, will she say that they're still both friends?

* * *

_Author's Rant_

_If you've been keeping up with the zodiac animals, you'll know that Ruby is the Mouse, Yang is the Dragon, and Sun is the Monkey. These three animals of the zodiac are described to be leaders—just naturally disposed towards positions of authority due to intelligence, confidence, and charm. _

_Although there were some people that I matched up instantly (Yang Xiao Long literally means "Little Dragon of the Sun" in Chinese, Blake/Adam/Velvet for obvious reasons), others hopped around a bit. Cardin was a Tiger at one point. Nora was a Horse while Ruby was the Dog, as many of you readers suggested—but Ruby has leadership potential as seen in the show while Nora seemed to be more socially adept; hence Ruby the Rat and Nora the Dog. Pyrrha was a Pig too before I decided the Western impression of a Pig, even as a Boar, was too negative for the character. Little things that made me juggle them around before finally deciding why this character best fit this animal._


	4. Of Mice and Men

Having someone jump in front of certain death for you, sacrificing themselves right before your eyes—that did things to people.

Even after the dragon girl came to stay, the memory still kept her awake at night.

* * *

**Chapter Four: Of Mice and Men**

* * *

Jaune's fought hard to get to this moment. Going behind his father's back to access shady dealers and get the proper forged paperwork done, avoiding his snoopy older brother Roman as much as possible, sneaking his sword and shield out of the armory, pilfering the necessary survival tools from around the house, and sneaking into Menagerie. Staying undercover had originally been part of the plan. Puking up his guts had not.

Still, even with that particular failure, just being able to sit here in the grand auditorium of Zodiac Academy is a success. Sitting in the second row, however, just a couple feet away from the intimidating Headmistress Goodwitch as she gives the most boring, longest-winded speech of all time, is not how Jaune would have imagined celebrating. Plus her voice is right at that perfect timbre that lulls one to sleep, and for some reason, he keeps having the same daydream about fried chicken and gravy.

_{No offense, Weiss.}_

"…must explicitly state that our enemy is no longer humankind, but rather the monsters of Grimm that threaten both human and faunus alike…"

Why did Pyrrha have to choose to sit so close to the stage? At least it's not a front and center seat—more towards the left side of the amphitheater than anything. Maybe he's just being paranoid, but whenever the Headmistress turns in his direction, he imagines her directing pointed glares at him.

"Given that all of you have had at least five years of combat training prior to admission, we fully expect all of you to excel at not only in physical battle, but also within applicable academic realms of strategy…"

Right when the headmistress drones, "Absolutely no shifting within buildings unless specifically authorized," something like a golf ball drops into the empty seat next to him. He has about half a second to catch a glimpse of a tiny, twitchy mouse before it erupts in a plume of crimson smoke, and out of this colored cloud emerges Ruby.

Well he's definitely wide awake now. "Eek!"

"Did I miss anything important?" Ruby whispers. The mouse ears atop her head shift and swivel excitedly, but as if realizing that she's acting quite mousy, she abruptly freezes, takes a mental moment to compose herself, and returns fully to a normal state.

"How… how did… what—"

Thankfully, Ruby misunderstands his shock. "Oh, Yang said to ignore half of the Headmistress says in her introduction speech. Rules meant to be broken, she said."

Pyrrha breaks her perfect schoolgirl attentiveness to turn a severe frown upon the smaller redhead. "Rules or guidelines they may be," she whispers, "But they've been established for the benefit of the whole. Perhaps a miniature creature such as yourself can do little harm, but you cannot say the same for your sister within a full classroom. Now shhh. Listen."

"Yang has _great_ control," mumbles Ruby stubbornly.

"…there will be no food within any classrooms," says the headmistress, just Jaune's stomach emits a particularly loud grumble and the image of fried chicken enters his mind yet again. Oh. That's why. In embarrassment, he tries to shrink into his seat, but he still feels like he's attracted the attention of everybody around him. So much for laying low.

The second the headmistress isn't looking, Ruby unties a small pouch from her waist and pushes the bag in Jaune's direction. "Food?"

Jaune gratefully accepts a handful of dried fruits and nuts. Halfway in the process of pouring the food down his mouth though, his brain stutters to a complete halt. "Wait wait wait," he splutters. "You were just a mouse."

Her silver-furred ears twitch in response. "Yeah?"

"You were a _tiny_ mouse."

"It's why I'm wickedly _fast_," Ruby grins cheekily.

"No, I meant—where did you get this from?"

"Nicked it from the kitchens," comes Ruby's muffled voice, her mouth full of trail mix. "Want some more?"

"Um." He grabs the bag and holds it in front of her eyes. "You. As a mouse. Were smaller than this bag alone. How is that even possible?"

Pyrrha jabs her elbow into Jaune's side, right before a _SNAP_ resounds through the entire auditorium. In the same moment, Ruby's tiny satchel is knocked from his hand and simply disintegrates into midair. Jaune flinches before swiveling in the direction that the sound came from; the headmistress is pointing a riding crop like a wand at him not twenty feet away, her cold eyes narrowed before she turns away and resumes speaking.

Jaune shivers. _{Mental note #1: Never cross that lady.}_

Ruby apparently has no care for the close call (and the loss of her food), because she soon whisper-shouts, "Wanna fight?"

"Wha?"

Ruby's silver eyes gleam with excitement. "If we duke it out after this, I can help you gauge your strengths and weaknesses! Tell you what to focus on and stuff."

Pyrrha nudges Jaune in warning again, so he settles for silent communication in the form of a clueless expression. It comes quite easily to his face.

"Oh. Well, when the headmistress mentioned combat training, you looked like you were going to pee your pants. I usually shake out pre-battle nerves with a smaller fight the day before, so…" Ruby bops her forefingers together nervously, as if she'd just asked him out on a date instead of... this.

Jaune raises an eyebrow. Ruby… is a tiny teenager. There are still some traces of childhood in her face (or maybe they're just mousy features): a small, round face with slightly chubby, rosy cheeks, large round eyes with that distinct silver gleam, a general twitchy hyperactivity mixed in with a tad bit of social awkwardness. It's not like he's underestimating her (okay, maybe a little), but... she isn't somebody that Jaune would want to hurt.

_{But she's offering help… and you definitely need help.} _"You think a… harmless mini practice battle is a good idea?" he murmurs as quietly as possible.

"Who said anything about harmless?" She must have seen the trepidation in his expression, because she adds, "Hey, better now than during Initiation."

Right. That again. "What's Initiation like?"

Pyrrha's elbow digs into his side, startling a squeak out of him. "If you were listening to the headmistress," she hisses, "You'd know that she's actually talking about it _right now_."

"Oh."

"—to watch your scrolls over the next couple days for incoming messages," Headmistress Goodwitch is saying. "At any time on a randomly selected day, you will be summoned to one of ten different arenas located throughout the academy to duel a randomly selected opponent. At least three instructors will be present to evaluate your performance; the Directors of the four school divisions will review select matches afterwards. Based upon these assessments of your battle technique, you will be given a Direction specializing in honing your strengths and covering your weaknesses."

A three-dimensional holographic projection flickers to life in a general cuboidal space above the stage and shifts in time with the headmistress' voice, from a stalwart black tortoise to a shimmering white tigress in mid-leap, a rising bird of crimson fire, and finally a writhing sea-green serpent underwater. "To the North Direction go those who value solid defensive strategies and precise and decisive blows. Those who excel in speed and subterfuge belong with the West, while those who bring offensive firepower to the field will be sorted into the South. Finally, those who demonstrate intelligence and quickness of mind will most likely find themselves headed for the East Direction.

"Know that each duel will be publicly projected into an overhead holoprojection for the viewing of the entire campus, so be sure to showcase the very best of your ability to your instructors and peers. Also know that, should you be knocked out within a certain time limit, your admission into this school will be revoked and you will have to leave school grounds immediately. Please note that the same goes for the purposeful exploitation, disfigurement, and/or consumption of an opponent already incapacitated. Please: just don't."

Jaune shivers again. It's like his vulnerability is on full display for the hundreds of possible predators sitting around him. Which of his neighbors is more likely to extend their claws and rip off his face? The emo guy with a red cloak at the end of his row? The busty girl sitting in front of him with hearts emblazoned on her blue gauntlets? Pyrrha, despite her help to him thus far? And he can't forget Ruby, especially since she looks awfully excited with the prospect of fighting him in the future on her mind.

"The dinner hall opens in an hour; until then, you are encouraged to familiarize yourself with the campus and each other. I look forward to reviewing your Initiations in the next couple days. Dismissed."

Ruby is already on her feet, leaping over people's laps and scampering towards the exit. "Com'on, Jaune! Let's fight to the… well, I guess this is just practice… but com'on, hurry up!"

Jaune glances at Pyrrha apologetically, but the redhead appears to be engaged in conversation with the black-haired girl with the blue gauntlets. Hesitantly, he touches Pyrrha's shoulder. "I'm going to… uh… practice with Ruby," he says weakly.

Pyrrha's conversation partner seemingly takes interest in this. "The Mouse?" she pipes up.

"Jaune, this is Tifa," Pyrrha introduces. "We went to the same combat school in the Tiger territories."

"I'm not a Tiger though," Tifa grins, pointing to her eyes. Her _crimson _pupils. Seriously, can't anybody here have a normal human eye color for once? That, and she has _way_ more muscle than he does—then again, who doesn't? Interestingly, she's wearing a pink ribbon tied around her left arm.

"The smaller the Rat, the faster they usually are," says Tifa, directing her advice at Jaune. "A girl that size? You're going to need some sort of Dust backup before you even think about approaching her."

"Uh, like this?" Jaune pulls the vial of Dust that Milta had given him earlier out of his pocket.

Pyrrha gently takes the small bottle from his hands, curiously inspecting the shifting interior of the powdery substance before handing it over to Tifa. "I only use one type of Dust for my rifle rounds," she admits. "Though yours certainly looks beautiful."

"Natural powder state," Tifa muses, swishing the contents of the bottle from side to side. She gestures at the sword sheathed within the collapsible shield strapped to his hip. "Is this something you plan on loading into your weapon?"

"I, uh… no?" He unsheathes his longsword for the first time in what feels like a long time; after he switched from combat training to tactical school, he never really had much time to take up swordplay again. "Crocea Mors," he says. "That's its name. It was passed down from my great-great-grandfather."

Pyrrha's eyes glow with interest. "I have my roots in the classics," she says. "May I?"

Jaune passes the hilt in Pyrrha's direction while Tifa ponders, "Maybe this Dust is something you use for personal enhancements through physical proximity."

"How?"

"I don't know," Tifa admits, handing the bottle back to Jaune. "Crystals inserted into talismans and charms usually do that job. They're weaker in power but less prone to blowing up at just a sneeze." She smiles coquettishly. "Anyways, best not to try anything like snorting that powder or something, otherwise you could lose that pretty face. Didn't the vendor tell you anything about it?"

"Actually, it was a gift. From Miltia Malachite."

Tifa and Pyrrha do that woman-thing where they have an entire conversation telepathically with just a single look. After a second or two, Tifa addresses Pyrrha with faked cheer, "Well, I'll be sure to catch your Initiation tomorrow, okay? I'm sure you'll make it into South." Without waiting for a reply, the black-haired girl is gone.

Immediately afterwards, Pyrrha grabs both of Jaune's shoulders and pulls him close. For a half-second, he thinks that Pyrrha's going to pull a Sun and trade saliva with him, but what happens next is just as unexpected. "Are you sure you spoke with a Miltiades Malachite?"

"Y-y-yeah." The look of alarm on Pyrrha's face makes Jaune uncomfortable. "What, did I say something wrong?"

Pyrrha's eyebrows contort. Her fingers grip into his shoulders—not painfully, but with more strength than she probably realizes. "For your sake, Jaune, don't mention her to anybody else."

"Why?"

"Jaune!" Ruby calls impatiently from several benches above. "What's the hold up?"

"I'll explain over dinner," responds Pyrrha. She pulls out her scroll. "Here, Tifa taught me a little trick earlier. We can locate each other if we exchange contact information."

Jaune curiously pulls out his scroll, watching as Pyrrha bops one end of her scroll against an end of his. Both of the central diamond buttons flash, with an emblem of a tiger's head blinking on Jaune's and a simple blank circle on Pyrrha's.

"Dinner date it is." Jaune flashes what he hopes is a confident smile. Then he hops up a row of seats and begins to make his way up towards Ruby. It isn't long before he gets stuck in the slow-moving crowd of students still filing towards the auditorium exits, however, and because he's only the clumsiest person in the world, he can't help but bump into every single person around him. "Whoops. Ack. Sorry, didn't mean to step on your—! Umf. Ruby, could you maybe wait—agh!"

A shoulder rams him in the back, knocking him straight into an unsuspecting girl. Some unintentional grappling goes down as they both try to maintain their balance, but the effort ends in nothing but an awkward tangle of limbs on the ground. Spluttering words of apology, he uses his arms to push at least his face out of her (lack of) chest… and is subsequently left speechless as he recognizes her face.

"It is good to meet you again, Jaune!"

Jaune nervously scrabbles off her and sits back on his haunches. "You! Penny!"

"Me! Penny!" Other than turning her head slightly to maintain eye contact with him, the freckled girl doesn't move at all from her supine position on the ground—not even when somebody steps on her hand.

Jaune winces as he moves forward to gather Penny's askew limbs together. "Here, do you think you can get up?"

"I certainly can!" As if she was simply waiting for the command, Penny easily leaps to her feet and dusts herself off. "How may I be of help to you, Jaune?"

"I—" Jaune scans the crowd and just barely catches a glimpse of Ruby. Again, though, who is he to deny somebody's help? "Uh, it's okay, Penny—but here, let's trade contact info so I can keep in touch with you." He glances down for just a second to locate and pull out his scroll. "See, I learned this nifty—"

_{LIGHT SHE'S DONE IT AGAIN}_

There is no orange-haired girl standing in front of him. She could have just as easily slipped into the crowd still streaming towards the auditorium exit, but he could have sworn… he'd only taken his eyes off her for half a second…

_{How did she even}_

_{But}_

_{what}_

"I'm trying to decide: either you're half-turtle," comes Ruby's voice from directly behind him, "Or you just don't want to get your butt kicked by a little girl on the first day of school."

* * *

"Forget kicking my butt. I am so boned. So boned it leaves me speechless."

Ruby does her best to look innocent, though the effect is mostly negated by the massive mechanical Scythe of Death carelessly resting on her back. "But I'm only fifteen," she says, her large eye wobbling pitifully. "Com'on, Jaune. Play with me."

He can't tell if she comprehends the implications of her words but disregards it in favor of pointing at her… _thing _accusingly. "What… I have no words. What is that _even_?"

Ruby spins the weapon off her back and around her body so casually that she might as well have been dancing with a flag and not a Scythe of Mass Destruction. Thankfully they've moved into an outdoor courtyard, otherwise she might have accidentally sliced up some unsuspecting furniture. She ends her display by folding the colossal weapon back into its rather compact storage form, then _cradles_ it lovingly. "This is Crescent Rose," she coos. "My preeeecious baby. Though I usually introduce her to strangers as a customizable high-caliber sniper-rifle scythe."

"A, a what?"

"Showing's always better than just telling. Com'on, pull out your tool, and let's get down and dirty." Just like that, she's unfolded her Rifle-Scythe of Doom and, with menacing _crunch_, planted its sharp tip at least three inches into the concrete. "You can handle a little girl, can't you?"

"Why do I keep getting the feeling that you're more in this practice sesh to kick my butt instead of helping me survive tomorrow's Initiation?"

"Why can't I just let my body do the teaching?"

_{She's fifteen. Don't forget she's fifteen.}_ "Um..."

A tiny smile slips onto Ruby's face. "Don't worry," she consoles. "We'll start off slow and easy and work our way up to however rough you want to go."

"Not too rough, please. I bruise easily." _{Well, confidence is a bust. Okay, focus on swordplay instead. Oh who am I kidding? Hers its tons bigger than mine. It's like fighting a jackhammer with a banana—}_

Jaune chokes on his thoughts when Ruby scoops him up in the curve of her Scythe of Suffering and tosses him into the nearest tree (which is still a good twenty away). The blade surprisingly doesn't slice through his leather armor pads, but falling out of the tree and faceplanting into the dirt hurts his manly pride. Just a little. "You didn't give me a countdown!" he moans, spitting grass out of his mouth.

"Opponents won't give you prior notice before they bone you," Ruby calls from the courtyard.

"So you admit to the crime."

"Don't worry, it gets less painful—well, okay, it's just as painful, but definitely a lot more fun—the more you work at it," Ruby comforts in her own peculiar way. (He's still working on convincing himself that the teenager doesn't have a clue of all those little implications.) "And I'd say that you're definitely not built for speed. Let's try something else in round two. Defense?"

Jaune pulls himself into a battle stance, gripping his sword with both hands while clearing his mind. _{Don't forget that she's four years younger than you are. Don't go there.}_ In terms of battle technique, he now knows that he can't brute-force her; her massive weapon gives her the upper hand in that aspect. The best he can really do is outmaneuver her. Surprise her. Maybe it's not too late to snort a little of Miltia's Dust… "Just give me three seconds to nurse my—"

"Threetwoonego!" Ruby yelps, and then she's flat out sprinting towards him with gleeful murder in her silver eyes.

Jaune barely dodges the scythe blade by jumping behind the tree, which lets out an ominous _schick _noise as the cutting edge buries itself three inches deep into the bark. Any panicked protest that Jaune prepared to shriek is drowned out when Ruby fires off a sniper round—and because the scythe blade is still planted deep in the trunk, it's her own body that is whipped around the tree like a slingshot by the recoil. The solid kick she delivers to his chest sends him flipping through the air like a flying fish, though this time he hits the ground with a well-rehearsed roll and comes to a stop in a ready crouch.

It's just long enough to get a good look at Ruby yanking her weapon out of the tree with the help of another gunshot and {_what the actual Light_} an explosion of rose petals that accompanies the blast. "Stay still a moment, will you?" she cries. "This shouldn't hurt much."

"What, lopping off my head?"

Ruby smiles cutely. "Okay, revision: it shouldn't hurt for very long."

How did his first faunus friend end up being so innocently sadomasochistic? "For the love of Remnant, Ruby, what kind of family did you grow up in?"

He doesn't exactly _run_, per se. It's a tactical retreat, heading away from the courtyard and towards a place with more trees. She didn't slice him in half with her first blow, so maybe she's using a dull practice edge, like one that she uses when she wants to fight friends and not chop up stirfry steak. Assuming that she can't mow down trees as easily cutting grass, maybe his opponent's particular weapon will have trouble in tighter spaces.

Ruby is way faster than he anticipated, though, literally vaulting over his head and showering him with rose petals. Anchoring her scythe deep in the dirt, she takes him down with a scissor kick—one leg in the chest and the other in the back of his knees. As he goes down like a limp noodle, she triumphantly answers, "I'm from Mice Clan. You, on the other hand… wherever you're from, you don't fight much, do you?"

The kick to his chest had knocked the breath from him, so Jaune takes a moment to gulp down lungfuls of rose-scented air—then quickly slaps his hands over his eyes in a panic, because, in all the lucky magnificence of the great universe, his position on the ground just so happens to give him the perfect shot up Ruby's red-lined skirt. "Ah! I'm sorry! This wasn't planned at all!"

"Huh?" A second later, Ruby squeaks, yanks her weapon out of the dirt, and leaps six feet backwards. "J-J-Jaune…"

Jaune scrambles backwards until he gets back onto his feet. "I'm not a pervert, I promise."

"Well, now I know how Yang feels when I tell her I haven't stolen cookies from the cookie jar," Ruby mutters to herself, before loudly speaking, "I believe you."

"I swear I—what?"

Ruby cradles her weapon as if for comfort before turning her eyes back to Jaune. "It was an awkward accident so let's get back to less awkward things like me helping you with your fighting technique please?"

Jaune nods frantically. "Great. Cool. I'm so sorry about—"

"So far you've been only been on the defensive," Ruby interrupts quickly. "But I wouldn't really stick you with the tanks of the North Direction because on a scale of one to wimpy, you're somewhere around three million."

"Hey!" This is immediately followed by a sneeze, flowers fluttering free of his hair from the force of the explosion. "Ugh. Allergies," he snuffles.

"Case in point."

"What? Even a man like me has weaknesses."

"I've seen allll of those, but I'm trying to find your strengths here so _think fast, round three_!" Without warning, she uses another flowery sniper round as propellant to rocket herself towards him.

By some miracle, his body moves a lot faster than his mind does. Maybe it's the Dust working its magic through some weird personal enhancement like Tifa had said, but what feels like an invisible pull on his shoulders and hips brings him not to the side and away from the threat; instead, he leans back and slides _forward _on his knees, scooting just under Ruby as she buries her scythe six a good foot into the dirt just inches behind his head.

Clearly Ruby wasn't expecting this move. Jaune wasn't really either, but he's the one who acts first, reaching up and grabbing the horizontal bar of her weapon with his shield hand. Ruby gasps in horrified resentment at this, but he doesn't give her much time to protest before he feints an upward stab with his longsword. Ruby reflexively leans back and shifts her weight back onto her haunches to dodge—whereupon, in a two-footed kick with one leg on either side of the scythe's shaft, he plants his feet into her center of weight.

She really is a tiny person, because it doesn't take a lot of force in his kick to knock her away. However, even her flight through the air is brought under control as she twists her tiny body gracefully, her fluttering red cape silhouetting her lithe form against the twilight sky, before she dive-bombs right back down onto him with a scream of "Hands off my baby!"

The second she lands, she attempts to dislodge him via the recoil of another gunshot. The maneuver probably doesn't go as she planned though, because she's got Jaune hanging off her scythe like a stubborn monkey. Like a stubborn _racked_ monkey in horrible pain, but having somebody who weighs twice as much as she does on her flying rocket of a killer weapon drastically throws off her calculations. In other words, they travel for all of three feet before their awkward mode of transportation flips over and throws its two passengers headlong into the grass. Ruby's light form tumbles much farther away than Jaune's, though she's immediately on her feet. Jaune literally throws himself backwards to land directly on top of her weapon of mass destruction, halting Ruby's forward motion.

"No! Stop!" she orders desperately. "You're touching her all wrong!"

Jaune lifts his hands in a pacifying manner. "I'm not going to violate… her. Just… evening the playing field." He leaps to his feet, sword and shield at the ready, to stand between Ruby and her weapon.

Ruby tilts her head quizzically. "Haven't you already won? You've de-weaponized me. Isn't this where you go, _'Off with her head'_ and swing your tool at my face?"

"I'm not going to underestimate you. You'll probably pull a fast one when I—"

He catches a glimpse of an approving grin right before the girl blurs into a silver comet that launches him straight up into the air. He barely has time to bring his shield up before she sweeps her scythe off the ground and swings it into him like a bladed baseball bat.

It's like getting hit by a high-speed train. Or getting launched off the edge of a cliff by a spring-loaded platform and tumbling through the sky with nothing but his own screams and the whistling of the wind filling his ears.

It's actually pretty much just like that, up until a spear barely grazes the skin of his tender neck before piercing the hood of his black sweater. This wickedly sharp projectile transforms his uncontrolled aerial tumbles into a speedy thrill ride that ends with him smashed into a tree, hanging at least thirty feet off the ground.

His heart is still thrumming in his ears when he glances up at the javelin that either saved him from a lot of pain, or was actually meant to end him messily. He really hopes the owner's intent was the former. He really doesn't know here at Zodiac. Who knows, maybe all faunus are bloodthirsty killers who shoot unidenitified flying objects first and ask questions later.

The spear itself is made of red and gold metal. There are joints and screws where there shouldn't be on any old lance, though. And is that a _gun barrel_ sticking out of the opposite end? Everything he's observed suggests that the javelin maybe has the same transformability of Ruby's weapon. In which case, do a lot of weapons here all serve dual functions? Will faunus here be disappointed that Crocea Mors doesn't have a railgun and butterfly net built into its form?

The colors of the lance resemble Pyrrha's emblem colors—at least, the crimson of the spear is a lot like the color of her hair, if he remembers correctly. Just in case, he shouts out, "THANK YOU!" while trying to pull himself loose. Unfortunately, the spear is buried quite deep into the wood. At least, that's what he tells himself. It's not like he's super weak or wimpy. It's the positioning of the spear too, right above and behind his head; the human body doesn't have the best muscles for that kind of action. And the thirty-foot drop beneath him. Eh… maybe he'll just hang out here for a while until whoever saved him (through questionable and frankly frightening methods) comes back to retrieve his/her weapon.

He's right at the point of wondering whether he's literally been hung out to dry when somebody speaks right into his ear. "Hazing's started already, hasn't it?"

Jaune lets out a little scream and turns his head straight into the metal rod pinning him to the tree, but as far as he can tell, there's nobody in sight. "Who's there?"

A figure alights onto the other end of the javelin pinning Jaune to the tree. Black hair, pale skin, and those piercing magenta eyes—he instantly recognizes the guard in the green jacket. "Why am I not surprised that it's you," says Lie Ren lightly, precariously perched yet maintaining balance with perfect poise.

Jaune notes how Ren posed his sentence not as a question but a statement. Did he really give off that sort of impression to the body guard? "You didn't happen to throw this, did you?" he questions, tapping the spear.

Ren shakes his head.

"Um. Did you happen to see who did?"

"I was reading the sky when you… landed," Ren responds. "I didn't see your bully."

"Bully? No, actually this was more like rescue work. At least, I think it was. Because I was already flying through the air before I got speared. And the reason why I was airborne wasn't because somebody… y'know, I'll explain later. Could you possibly help me get down?"

Ren nods silently. He punches both fists forward; the forward momentum magically brings two firearms out of his green sleeves. The guns themselves have blades attached to them, a lot like Melanie had cutting edges to her boots. Thankfully, Ren uses his bladed weapons not to attack Jaune's face, but to anchor himself into the tree bark above Jaune's head. From that position, he begins to work on pulling the javelin straight out from the tree in order to avoid harming the spearhead.

"Thanks," says Jaune.

Ren doesn't reply.

"So… you're Weiss' guard."

Ren only grunts. It sounds like a confirmatory grunt. Jaune glances upwards to try and get a look at Ren's expression, but the only view he gets from his hanging position is dat ass in those tight white pants.

He spends the rest of their conversation meticulously inspecting his shoes.

"We all need someone to lean on," Ren says quietly after the world's most awkward pause.

"What was that?"

The other boy remains silent for a couple seconds before unexpectedly switching subjects. "You look like you've taken a lot of abuse."

Jaune sheepishly rubs the back of his head. "Well, see, I was just about to talk about that. Like how I got my butt kicked in a duel. A friendly duel, between friends, without harmful intent. Huh, actually, I'd like to take that back. There was definitely harm intended… but in a good way? No pain, no gain, right?"

Ren continues as if Jaune hadn't spoken. "I have a friend who has a similar history."

Jaune feels like he should be drawing connections between the points that Ren's mentioning, but really, all he feels is lost. Maybe if he could see Ren's face... better not risk it though. "Uh… I'm sorry…?"

"You have nothing to apologize for."

Ren relapses into what he probably thinks is a comfortable silence, punctured only by grunts of effort as he continues to work the spear free. Maybe Ren's like that: one of those quiet, untalkative people who find solace in soundless moments.

Jaune isn't one of those people.

It isn't long before he feels the need to fill up the awkward silence with inane conversation—like the first thing that comes to mind: "So… what's the deal with Miltia Malachite?"

There's only silence for the longest time, until finally Lie Ren says, "She doesn't exist."

* * *

_Author's Rant_

_I've revised this half a million times and still am not completely content with it. Ah well. Here's to the last post of 2013!_

_Tifa comes from Monty Oum's previous __**Dead Fantasy **__series (more specifically, **Final Fantasy VII**). If you're a fan of either __**Final Fantasy**__ or __**Dead or Alive **__or just teams of action girls going all out mixed-martial-arts on each other, you should definitely look it up on Youtube. _


	5. Crouching Tiger, hidden dragon

Rivulets of sweat forged clean tracks through the layer of grime and dried blood coating her weary body. Still, she forced herself to her feet, reached forward with her semblance to summon her weapon to her hand and launch it out again in short order.

But it was too late. They had already lost. The medics had been slain by the time she'd arrived on the battlefield, though they all went down fighting to the last breath. The entire hospital, weakened by fire and carefully aimed energy blasts, had collapsed underneath its own weight. Though she and her friends worked together to dig through the blazing devastation, she couldn't help but despair that it was just too late.

She recalled her javelin. Turned towards the sound of ringing metal, the explosions of fire in the distance. Threw with all her strength and used her semblance to guide the ferromagnetic projectile along. Felt it shear through steel armor and human flesh with equal ease.

She couldn't care anymore, not after this.

* * *

A short distance away, a single dragon watched the remnants of her clan burn.

* * *

**Chapter Five: Crouching Tiger, hidden dragon**

* * *

"Miltia Malachite doesn't exist," repeats Jaune slowly.

A long silence. What isn't the green-jacketed guard saying? Is he choosing his words carefully? Does he think that Jaune is an ignorant idiot? Or is he still wondering why Jaune was staring at the seat of his tight white pants earlier?

Jaune keeps his gaze deliberately focused on his sneakers as Ren works the spear loose. Finally, he has to say _something_. "I totally talked to her two hours ago."

Belatedly, he remembers Pyrrha's warning. She hadn't exactly told him why it was so important to keep silent about Miltia… but hey, the Sheep helped him by kickstarting his aura. Plus she wanted to keep meeting him to help him with his chakras. It's not like she'd have any ulterior motives in assisting him, right? So it only makes sense that he reciprocate her kindness by believing in her existence, right?

That's something he'd never thought he'd say.

Ren remains quiet. The guy seems to like long silences. Jaune decides that from here on out, he can probably _expect_ the guy to pause for max awkwardness before responding.

"Ah."

_{That's it? That's all he has to say?}_

Jaune chuckles uncertainly. "So what is this, a conspiracy theory?"

As if things couldn't get any more awkward… "Exactly."

_{What does that even mean blxkdnsldnfos} _

"The King's Horses are fairly adamant that everybody believe that."

"Um… so, if I told you that I've been living underneath a rock for most of my life, how would you—"

"Malachite Technologies," Ren clarifies understandingly.

_{Okay. That's something. Finally.}_ "So you don't believe it?"

"I was hired by the Teeth to befriend and protect their heiress Schee because of that incident," he replies curtly. "I remember the girl clearly. If what you say is true, then it can only mean one thing."

"What?"

"Brace yourself."

Jaune is still pondering the significance of that preparatory statement when Ren yanks the spearhead free. He plummets to the ground, screaming for all of half a second before something cold and hard slams his jaw shut—slams into his entire body, actually. Something solid and secure that he can't help but wrap his limbs around for security as they hit the ground roughly.

Everything finally stops.

Jaune unclenches his entire face and stares up into the emerald eyes of a certain Pyrrha Nikos. She's carrying him in her arms like a true warrior with a recently rescued damsel in distress, and he certainly isn't helping with the image by smooshing his face against her breastplate for all he's worth. "U-u-uh, Pyrrha!"

She lets him get to his feet and claps her hands free of imaginary dust with a grin, either totally ignorant or super courteous about his unintentionally perverted ways. "I'm glad you're okay," she says before lifting her eyes to Ren. "And thank you too!"

Jaune is too busy stuttering broken apologies to notice Ren tossing Pyrrha's javelin down before silently leaping upwards into the leaves of the tree above; by the time he remembers the business about the Malachites, his second opinion has already disappeared. Ah well, he'll just have to pester Pyrrha after dinner about it.

The spear somehow falls right back into Pyrrha's upstretched hand, whereupon she smacks it against her armored side. The weapon begins to collapse then, folding into itself gracefully until it resembles a short sword. "I did not want to miss," she smiles, hooking the sword into a belt at her waist, "But at the same time I did not want to hit anything valuable."

_{Did her eyes just drop…? No, focus.}_ "Not that I'm not grateful to you for breaking my fall—twice—but, uh, how did you manage to…" He trails off, hoping she'll get the hint.

Pyrrha has the grace to look abashed. "I heard you screaming through the air on my way to the lakeside."

Jaune looks at her skeptically. "That's practically on the other side of campus."

"Thus my concern," Pyrrha nods. "It's been a while since I've had such a short-distance target."

The skepticism transforms into a wary side-eye. "Really."

"I had to scale back the strength quite a bit to avoid punching a hole in your neck," she continues unawares, "Or worse, tearing the clothes right off your body." The side-eye Jaune gives her is now not so much skeptical as it is incredulous, yet it all goes over Pyrrha's head as she quickens her pace. "I suppose we did not have to locate each other using our scrolls after all," she muses, "As it is currently dinner time, and I smell meat."

She offers her arm to him, and he's quick on the draw this time, hooking his arm to escort her in the general direction of delicious foods.

* * *

It's moments like these when he feels like he could fall down at Pyrrha's feet in gratitude.

Moments like entering the cafeteria and not having to worry about where to sit.

Hey, the concept is actually a lot more important than you'd think. It's the first day of school. Well, not quite, seeing he still has to pass Initiation, but today is the first time that all the students are gathering together in an open social setting. He swears that 70% of the eyes in the eating commons flicker in his direction, evaluating and processing his presence by Pyrrha's side. It might not be a conscious effort, but they're probably already subconsciously associating him with her.

See? First impressions are important.

But there's more. There were already first impressions to be had during the headmistress' opening speech. Dinner is one step further. Students will be banding together here, drawing connections via mutual friends, expanding their social networks and laying down the groundwork for tight friendship circles.

If what Dad says is true—that women go crazy over confidence—then right now, women should be taking note of his name and number. Okay, well, maybe he's not lady-killer great _{yet, heh heh heh}_, but definitely a lot better now that Pyrrha is on Team Jaune. At least, on his end, his eyes aren't picking out details of the ground at his feet as he and Pyrrha get in the food line, but rather surveying the cafeteria with… what is this strange feeling? Not the usual insecurity or doom, but… whoa. Positivity.

Yang is the most eye and ear-catching spectacle in the cafeteria; she's loud and proud and flashy as she love-taps the faunus around her, maybe catching up with summer stories. Still, she maintains a physically close distance with Monkey boy who'd assaulted him, flirtatiously bringing Sun close before abruptly diverting her attention to another male. Sun on his part handles himself with an almost calculated carelessness, taking Yang's bouncing act in stride while keeping up his own conversations. Together, the two play the part of Zodiac's power couple, keeping their many friends close…

Weiss sits close to the center of this party, a chip of pale ice in the middle of rowdy firestorm. She keeps shooting murderous looks in Yang's direction for their apparent encroachment into her table space, and though Yang never even glances in Weiss' direction, the icy frowns seem to buoy her passionate excitability even more. However, when Blake gently lays a hand on Weiss' arm and murmurs a couple words, the ice princess finally gives up her futile attempts and settles for daintily using chopsticks to bring tofu salad to her mouth. Her remaining guard, Adam, drives away encroaching faunus using pure intimidation factor alone.

Ren must be off-duty or something, because he's not even in the area. Nora's standing in line and waves at him and Pyrrha excitedly. Because she's already pretty far ahead, though, Jaune just settles for waving back with a smile. A girl standing next to her, one with rabbit ears atop her head, cringes at his gesture; Nora doesn't miss this, nor does she pass up the opportunity to begin teasing the bunny girl, causing her to blush scarlet.

Then there's Melanie on the opposite side of the room, also surrounded by a smaller but tighter group of female faunus all dressed in varying shades of white. Interestingly, Miltiades is nowhere in sight, though Cardin stands watch over the girls, his arms are folded crossly over his barrel chest as he regards Jaune with an intense expression.

Pyrrha nudges Jaune playfully. "Looking good, Jaune."

"Aw, really? Stop it."

"No, truly," she insists. "Compared to our initial encounter outside the gates of the Academy, you seem to have gained quite a bit of confidence. I suppose your warm-up battle with Ruby went well?"

Just like that, his tiny blossom of beautiful confidence dies a quiet death. "Uh. I guess I didn't tell you just why I was screaming."

"Oh!" A thoughtful appearance passes across her face. "I was wondering how you managed to gain such a high upward velocity…"

"Well, you see, I violated her—" he notices the horror of Pyrrha's expression and rushes his words, "—_weapon, _it was her _weapon_!" When the expression doesn't abate in the slightest, he hastily elaborates,_ "_She was super touchy about me grabbing her scythe sword weapon of doom wrong. And then I _sat_ on it to keep it away from her—" If anything, the horror on Pyrrha's face _triples_ in intensity, causing Jaune to hang his hand in embarrassment. "Y'know, I'll just go stand in a corner and bang my head into the wall now."

"Well, you've expressed shame at your earlier act of dishonor," concedes Pyrrha. "But I'm not the person you should be apologizing to."

Jaune glances at Yang's group of friends to find Ruby staring at him. He quickly looks away, just a little paranoid that her super sensitive mousy ears have been somehow listening into their conversation. "Uh-oh-o-o-okay."

Pyrrha tilts her head and leans down in the direction of his down-turned face, her crimson hair descending like a curtain to fill up his vision. "Okay what?" she teases.

"I'll talk to her after dinner," Jaune finishes nervously. Preferably when the two of them are alone and not surrounded by classmates eavesdropping on how he sat on her preeeeecious weapon. Aw man. It had been a great way to keep himself safe at the time, but Pyrrha's disapproval just makes him feel really, really stupid now.

The redhead smiles approvingly. "I'm sure you w—"

"JAUNE!" Nora explodes into existence between the two of them, forcing both back a couple steps. Slung over her shoulder like a bag of potatoes is a girl already wearing the school uniform. "Here Jaune you should totally meet my new friend!"

"Nora! Please put me down!" said girl squeaks, kicking her little legs at Nora's chest. Alas, the action upsets her balance and causes her head to slide down Nora's back while her wiggling lower limbs kick up her small plaid skirt—resulting in Jaune first seeing her hot red panties before he even sees her face.

…The gods of the universe must hate him.

"Nora!" Jaune and Pyrrha cry simultaneously, both shielding their eyes. The damage is already done, however; Jaune can already feel those judgmental glowers directed to the back of his head, as if the flashing of Nora's unfortunate friend is somehow _his_ fault. And it might just be his vivid imagination, but Jaune winces in pain when the laser glares of Ruby and Weiss bore into his skull. They're probably wondering if Jaune has mysterious booty-revealing powers.

Nora is wearing the hugest shit-eating grin Jaune's ever seen when she says, "Jaune, meet scarlet underwear!" She whirls around 180 degrees to present the furiously blushing face of the bunny girl from before. "Velvet Scarlatina, welcome to Team Jaune."

"Eep!" Velvet freezes comically in mid-struggle before slumping in defeat over Nora's shoulder like a wet noodle. "Somebody, end me now."

Pyrrha places one hand on Velvet's hip. "Let's stop humiliating the poor girl, Nora," she says gently.

Jaune glances at the cafeteria ceiling in embarrassment as Velvet returns to solid ground with Pyrrha's help. "Uh, hi there."

"Eep." Velvet bounces behind Pyrrha, her long brown bunny ears quivering like leaves in the wind.

How is he even supposed to approach this situation? "Good… to meet you?"

"Jaune, you dork!" mutters Nora, scooting right up to Jaune's ear conspiratorially. "Do you get out much? She's obviously head-over-paws in—"

A giant pink hammer descends out of nowhere and pounds Nora into the ground, complete with a small explosion of pink smoke and glitter hearts. "Nora," rebukes Ren, stepping up next to their group then with guilty weapon in hand. "You little brat."

"I love you too, Ren!" Nora chirps, popping back up with absolutely no injury to her body besides a large heart-shaped imprint on her orange head of hair. "Aaaaand I'll take that back." She snatches the sledgehammer from Ren's hand, quickly folding and compressing it into a portable grenade launcher.

It's definitely saying something when Jaune's mind accepts this multi-functional weapon transformation without much more than an offhanded _{huh, that's cool}_ thought.

"Team Jaune, huh?" Ren remarks.

"I'm his official manager. Seats are filling up quick!" She slaps Velvet's rear end without a second thought as she declares, "Our resident Rabbit has already secured hers with a deliberate show of her own red hot seat."

"Eep!" With this final farewell, Velvet bolts.

Nora whisper-shouts at Jaune, "Wasn't sure if it was just the panties or not, but I have a feeling she has the hots for you."

Pyrrha face-palms in secondhand embarrassment.

Then Ren asks, "May I join?" while keeping his face carefully neutral.

Jaune trips and face faults onto the ground, paralyzed in shock.

"I don't know," Nora says, one finger tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Though your application is definitely pretty strong—Director of the Zodiac speedsters, third-year senpai to us ignorant first-years and all—it's nothing compared to Scarlatina's bombing presentat—"

Ren sighs and slaps his own behind. Pyrrha joins Jaune on the ground in a traumatized face fault as Nora whoops, "You're in!"

* * *

"So then we made millions selling the pelts to fur traders who made them into fabulous scarves!"

"Ten dollars, actually," Ren corrects, neatly cutting his grilled chicken breast into perfect cuboidal bite-sized pieces. "And only because Nora wouldn't stop hounding them."

"It was my adorable puppy eyes," insists Nora, wolfing down her third plate of food. "Nobody can resist my ridiculously cute puppy eyes."

"I did."

"No ya didn't!"

Pyrrha swallows her mouthful before speaking. Surprisingly, she's eating even more meat than Nora is. Probably to fuel the huge guns that she's packing. "You two sound like you go way back."

Nora grins, "We were communicating telepathically as fetuses."

"We didn't meet until we were ten."

"Telepathy knows no distance," she defends. "Especially once you're in the same pack."

Jaune pulls upon his scarce knowledge of faunus from the history of the war to ask, "Don't Snakes usually go solo?"

"See? It was our telepathic connection from birth that brought him to me," Nora explains brightly.

"I caught her breaking into my food stash."

"IT WAS FATE!"

Nora's exuberant outburst draws more than a few stares from their neighbors, most of who immediately return to their own food. At this point, Jaune notices that Yang's huge conglomeration of friends has extended a branch in their general direction, bringing the popular faunus around them. They're all either incredibly attractive, like a slim redhead with a key-shaped blade hanging off her hip, or they're in possession of weapons of mass destruction, like Ruby with Crescent Rose. Tifa waves at Pyrrha pleasantly while conversing with a spiky-haired blonde with an oversized wide-blade sword magnetized to his back, but her eyes slide right over Jaune as if he doesn't exist.

Which reminds him, Pyrrha was supposed to tell him about Miltia! Only now, Pyrrha is pretty engaged in talking with Nora and Ren, and it sadly doesn't look like she's about to slip away anytime soon.

"I managed okay without Ren when he was off doing his guard-guarding-guardiggity things," Nora is saying. "In fact, over the years, we even developed a secret long-distance signal to keep tabs on each other."

"It's not very secret when you scream it at the top of your lungs."

Pyrrha laughs, quipping, "If you followed them around using your, eh, secret signal for years, I can see why the heiress Schnee regards you in the way she does."

"Meh, I figure I'll just avoid her as much as possible for the rest of the year," Nora chirrups. "What about you, Jaune? Got any fun war stories?"

Jaune can hear his heart pounding in his ears as three pairs of eyes fall to him. He can't really fabricate a convincing tragic story of love and war and everything in between within three seconds, so instead he mumbles the truth: "I… um… didn't fight."

The responses are varied, from Ren's narrowed eyes to Pyrrha's glance of concern. After two seconds, Jaune can't help but stare at his empty dinner plate—until Nora blurts in her usual tactless manner, "Everybody fought. Somehow, some way."

Ren's awkward pauses are nothing on the silence that's stretching between them right now.

"Everybody has their own story," Pyrrha finally assures, resting a hand on Jaune's shoulder.

"No, I didn't mean it that way," Nora backpedals. "At least, the way I think that you're thinking of the way I think. Which it isn't. What I meant to say is that, even if you didn't fight, you had to have had some sort of—"

"You're digging yourself into a hole," Ren interrupts. "And not the good kind."

"If you're looking for a story," Pyrrha offers, "I fought at Fort Hospice."

That's a definite conversation stopper. Even Nora has the tact to limit herself to "Oh. Wow."

"Pyrrha, you don't have to recount that experience," interjects Jaune quickly. Really, she doesn't, because if Tigers value honor in everything, then her memories of that battle (and her impression of humans) must have been pretty horrible. "Especially not to cover _my_ butt."

"I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't want to talk about it, now would I?"

A small detail that had been niggling at the back of his mind finally makes it to the surface. "Hold on a second. How old are you?"

Nora slaps Jaune on the shoulder playfully. "You _don't_ get out! Basic rules with the ladies: you don't talk about weight or age."

"A clever way of posing the question," Ren offers sagely, "Is to ask how _young_ they are."

Pyrrha just smiles ruefully. "I was thirteen years old at the time, had a basic handle on javelins, and happened to be close by. They drafted me right away on emergency call."

Jaune tries to imagine who Pyrrha was when she'd been shoved into the middle of the Fort Hospice battlefield. Had she started growing into the graceful woman she is today yet, or had she still been a clumsy child? Well, maybe not clumsy if she had that insane accuracy… but what boggles his mind the most is that Fort Hospice was _early_ in the Faunus War. How much of Pyrrha's life was spent as a warrior on the bloody front lines? Was that the 'five years of combat training' that the headmistress had talked about in her opening speech? How many days of her teenaged years had Pyrrha spent not as a soldier, but as just a normal girl, or a student, or a significant other?

_{She definitely isn't any less well-rounded though despite that though}_

_{Yeah just look at those curves huehuehue}_

Of course, it's Nora that spews out her questions first, her eyes wide. "Oh my Light! What did you do? What were your firsts? Did your Semblance activate then? How did you feel when you did all of that? Give me all the juicy details!"

Jaune tries to lean in close to Pyrrha and the telling of her story, only to find an unexpected hand on his shoulder keeping him back. He startles and twists around to find Blake looming above him. He can't see any sort of dark aura wafting off her body, but he certainly feels a heavy intimidation factor from her weighing down on his head and cringes in response.

"I need to borrow Jaune here for a second," says Blake quietly.

Pyrrha glances between Jaune's and Blake's faces, her expression uncertain. She's probably thinking the same thing that he is: that what's happening right now eerily mirrors the first encounter they had a couple hours ago. It's only now that Jaune realizes what that might have meant to the Tigress: that, in a moment of uncertainty, he'd _trusted_ the Cat over her. Maybe it hadn't meant that much to her at the time, as they'd only just met. Maybe it doesn't mean much now either, but Jaune would like to think that he and Pyrrha are fairly good friends now. This time…

"Hey Blake," Jaune says. "Sorry, but I'm in the middle of team building."

Nora's eyes light up with an excited sparkle. "Oo, are you applying to Team Jaune too?"

The Cat's lip curls at she stares the Dog down. The Dog happily stares right back, not giving a fuck. After a charged moment, Ren diplomatically waves a hand towards the slight gap between Jaune and Pyrrha. "Would you like to take a seat?"

"Only if you first show us your—" is all Nora gets out before Ren uses chopsticks to toss a chunk of chicken meat towards Nora's mouth. The Dog cuts herself off to reflexively snap up the food.

Blake's hand tightens on Jaune's shoulder, her fingernails digging into his skin. He doesn't remember her having fingernails that sharp though. Maybe they're retractable? Are retractable fingernails possible for faunus? "Jaune, I _need_ to talk to you."

Pyrrha smiles, though it's more out of grace than any real happiness. "Is this something you can share with the team, or is it for the leader's ears only?"

Blake smiles as well, though the fact that her pupils, now mostly hidden by her black bangs, have obtained an ominous red glint… it's really starting to freak Jaune out. And the fingernails digging into his shoulder feel a lot more like claws. "Even the youngest of roses can wilt in an hour if left untended," she quotes mysteriously as she unhooks her hand from his shoulder. Jaune unconsciously sags in relief as the Cat leaves them.

"She's creepy," Nora announces. "Even if her panties had dancing purple elephants on them, I don't think she'd make it in."

"Too many secrets," mutters Pyrrha, almost to herself.

"A poet," muses Ren approvingly.

Jaune doesn't say much, only watching Blake as she stalks towards the cafeteria exit. A lot of faunus have finished up their meals and are in the process of leaving, including a lot of Yang's lesser groupies. And one significant friend. Jaune would have pegged Ruby as one who would have stuck around longer to hang out with the popular kids, if only because she holds the position as Yang's moe younger sister. Maybe Ruby wants to strike out her own path? Except the young teenager is morosely ignoring everybody around her as she walks away from him and straight out the doors.

Blake's parting words spring to mind again as Jaune launches himself to his feet in horrified realization.

_{Ruby Rose.}_


End file.
